An Overview of Communication Tools in Moodle

On This Page:

• The Announcements Forum
  
• Email
  
• Moodle Profile Settings
  
• Discussion Forums
  
• The Upcoming Events Block & Calendar Block
  
• Checklist Activities
  
• Group Communication & Collaboration Spaces
  

Moodle provides many communication tools. This overview will help you learn about the strengths and limitations of each tool and when you might choose to use it.

The Announcements Forum

Announcements (previously called News Forum) is a unique forum that acts as an announcements tool for your Moodle course. It appears by default in the top section of your course homepage and is related to the Latest news block. By default, only instructors and TAs can post to Announcements. 

Discussion Forums

Instructors and students can communicate and collaborate in Moodle using Forums, sometimes called "discussions". Instructors can create topics or, depending on the forum type, allow students to create topics to which course members can post a reply.

For descriptions of the various types of forums and instructions on how to set one up in your course, see Add a Forum Activity in Moodle. 

The Upcoming Events Block & Calendar Block

The Upcoming events and Calendar blocks help you and your students to keep track of due dates and other important events in your course. When you add an activity with a due date to a Moodle course, the due date is automatically added to the course calendar. The Upcoming events block lists events approaching on the calendar.

Checklist Activities

The Moodle Checklist allows teachers to create a "to do" list for students to work through and provides an easy visual representation of what has been accomplished so far. With a Checklist, teachers can monitor progress as students complete items on the list, and students can see a progress bar showing the percentage of the items they have completed.