I am struggling with Groups

I am struggling with Groups

by Steve Edwards -
Number of replies: 8

I am running a Moodle and implementing the Groups feature for the first time. I am struggling a bit and would appreciate any tips or help.

1.

A first I assumed that students would be able to assign themselves to groups but looking in the archives figured out that that was an upcoming feature and so allocated the students myself.

2.

I then wanted to send an email announcement to only that group... but how? I tried setting up a Forum but could not see an option for group allocation... tried profiles, etc. etc. but all to no avail...

So please can someone explain to me what I am doing wrong and what the functionality of the Group is?

I think I just need a bit of guidance here...... smile

Is there any way just to send an announcement to a specific sub group of students within a course?

TIA

Steve

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In reply to Steve Edwards

Re: I am struggling with Groups

by Tom Murdock -
1. You are correct.  I think someone has created a hack that allows students to choose their own groups, but Moodle doesn't currently support that feature.

2.  A quick how to:

a) In course "settings" (in your course admin box) make sure that you have turned groups on to "visible" or "separate groups". Unless you want every activity in the course to be group oriented, I wouldn't "force" the groups.

b) When you are viewing your course page with editing on, you'll see a little group icon next to the activity edit buttons (this appears only if you've completed step a). To make the forum discussions private to specific groups, toggle the icon until it says "separate groups."

note: If you choose "visible groups," your students will only be able to post in their own group discussion, but they can see what others have written (by using a "group view" toggle button that appears if you've competed step b).

Now you should be able, as a teacher, to view the discussion by toggling through the "group views". If you want a whole group to get an email, make sure you are in the correct group view, make sure that your forum is set to "force subscribe," and voila, your post will be sent to all of the right people.

Does this help?
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In reply to Tom Murdock

Re: I am struggling with Groups

by Steve Edwards -
Yes thank you, I begin to see now.... but compared with the ease of use and functionality of Moodle in general this feature seems somewhat awkward.  Maybe it is becuase the rest of it is so good! smile
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In reply to Steve Edwards

Re: I am struggling with Groups

by Martin Koops -

Indeed, the question about communication with subgroups puzzles me as weel (see also http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=10365). Are you trying to do somethinmg similar?

regards, Martijn

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In reply to Martin Koops

Re: I am struggling with Groups

by Steve Edwards -
Pretty much.... I think Tom has goods on this... but I will probably not use the feature for now  as it seems awkward and I am concerned about making mistakes - i.e. wrongor insufficient information going to the wrong people becuase I forget to select the group again....
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In reply to Steve Edwards

Re: I am struggling with Groups

by Susan Jeffers -
I thought I understood Groups but then apparently I didn't -- yesterday was a real circus, with some students able to see some posts and not others, some able to reply to some but not others -- and me totally confused! Yikes!

I want everyone to be able to see everything, and most of our Forums are "Plenary" -- everyone can see everything, everyone can reply to anything, everyone can add a new topic. However each week I also want a small group discussion, in which each person can only see and post within his or her own small group. I the instructor of course can see all and post everywhere smile

So what I just did was go down through the whole course and toggle the little people icon to the right of each activity to one little brown person, EXCEPT the small group discussion forums (fora) which have a single little brown person icon. None of them have the one brown and one gray person.

Is that right?

Also -- what difference, if any, do "groups" make for activities other than the forum? Such as Resources?

Also I just changed my "Settings" Group Mode to "No Groups" since that's what I mostly want. And "Force" was "No." I wanted No Groups will just be a default, which I could override for small group discussion forums. But when I got out of Settings I had no little group icons at all -- that's no good!  So now the setting is back to Visible Groups, which I actually never want... Yikes again!

THANKS!!!!

Confused but still enjoying Moodle,

Susan Jeffers
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In reply to Susan Jeffers

Re: I am struggling with Groups

by Morag Munro -
Hi Susan

I think these are the settings you need:

In your settings area, set the groups mode to "visible groups" and force to "No".

Make sure that all of the activities you want all students to see are set to visible groups: visible groups and set the forums you want to use for the small group discussions to separate groups: separate groups

Groups only affect activities where students interact with each other/you/moodle: they don't make any difference to resources. See this thread for more info.

Morag.
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In reply to Morag Munro

Re: I am struggling with Groups

by Susan Jeffers -
Thanks!!!

One additional question --

For the forums I want all students to see, how would "visible groups" be different from "no groups"? 

Susan

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In reply to Susan Jeffers

Re: I am struggling with Groups

by Morag Munro -
Good point. With visible groups, participants will see a dropdown list that will allow them to chose to view posts from members of all groups, or to view posts according to groups.

With no groups, participants will see postings from all participants, which might suit your purposes better.

Morag
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