If you have any questions during this presentation, my contact information is as follows:

Transcription

1 Welcome to this lesson on the Moodle Discussion Board. My name is Gregg Wade and during this lesson we will take a look at discussion boards in Moodle. If you have any questions during this presentation, my contact information is as follows: Gregg Wade Distance Education Coordinator College of The Albemarle greggory_wade@albemarle.edu 1

2 Discussion boards are simply a communication tool which allows students to leave a message that all other participants can read and respond to. Unlike using , which requires you to provide an individuals address, discussion boards typically just require you to create a message. One important thing to remember with discussion boards, everyone in your class or group will be able to read them and you should create messages that are both meaningful and appropriate to the discussion topic. If you have not done so already, you should log in to Moodle and access your course in the My Courses section. 2

3 If you scroll down to the Using Moodle module, there is a discussion board you are encouraged to practice with called Practice Posting to An Online Forum. For this lesson we will look at posting a message in the Practice Posting to An Online Forum discussion board. 3

4 On this page, notice there are several parts which you should be aware of. 1. First is the discussion board description, which is usually created by the instructor for students to discuss a particular topic. For this discussion board the instructor allows us to discuss anything to practice using the discussion board. 2. Next is the Subscribe to this forum link, which will allow you to receive updates when new messages have been posted. 3. Next, is the Add a new discussion topic button, which simply starts a new discussion thread. Other students or the instructor can read your topic and leave responses to your message. 4. Finally is the current discussion threads which we can click on to read messages left by instructors and students. 5. For this example, I m going to read the Welcome to Moodle topic by clicking on the appropriate link. 4

5 On this page I can see the discussion thread started by my instructor. Each discussion thread shows the topic of the thread (as shown in number 1), who posted the thread (as shown in number 2), when they posted it, (as shown in number 3) and the message they posted (as shown in number 4). To reply to a message posting, I can simply click the Reply link at the bottom of the message (as shown in number 5). 5

6 Here I can see the message I am replying to (as shown in number 1), and I can type my reply to the message. To reply to a message posting, I can simply click in the large text area (as shown in number 2) and type my message. 6

7 Once you have finished typing your message, you can scroll down and decide if you would like responses to this message ed to you or not by selecting the appropriate option in the Subscription dropdown list (as shown in number 1). For this example I chose to have posts in this discussion thread ed to me. Finally, to post your reply, click the Post to Forum button (as shown in number 2). 7

8 As you can see here, my reply is posted under the main discussion posting. Notice my reply is indented to show it is a reply to the message above it. Also notice there are a few options under my post I can select. 1. The first is the Show Parent link, which bring me back to the original post. This is very useful for long discussion threads which may scroll down several pages. 2. The next link is the Edit link and allows me to make changes to my reply. This is very useful if you accidentally misspell a word and want to correct it. 3. The next link will delete your topic. 4. Finally you can reply to your topic. Although this sounds funny to reply to yourself, it can be handy if you want to add additional information to your discussion without changing what you originally stated. 8

9 Here we can see my instructor has made a reply to my posting. Notice the reply is indented yet again to show it is a reply to what I posted. 9

10 Thank you for viewing this presentation on the Moodle Discussion Board. In this lesson you learned about the basics of the Moodle discussion board and how to create a discussion thread. You also learned how to reply to messages and how to view posts from other students. If you have any questions about using the discussion board, please feel free to contact me. My contact information on the first page of this presentation. Good Luck! 10