Here's the thing. I am a firm believer in constructivism. As Martin has pointed out it is the philosophical basis of Moodle. One way in which it is implemented is by keeping the teacher and students informed of activity actions by use of email alerts.
Now I have been having problems with this function for several weeks now, ever since I switched to 1.9.3 Sometimes the alerts work and other times they don't. they work with some forums in some courses but not with other forums in the same course or even in different courses. Even though all visible settings are the same. (I have a few different courses and lots of forums.) I cannot afford the time going to each forum to see if there are any posts (or even with tracking on, to go to each course to see if the forums have had any activity). Then to look at the posts in different threads to see if any need action from me. So I am having trouble actually following the social contsructivism pedagogy.
I have posted some requests for help but obviously everybody is busy and cannot provide assistance. I've also searched the bug tracker and Moodle docs but not found the solution yet. So I am making a suggestion.
Is it possible to have a forum that allows folk to post queries directly related to the social constructivism approach to teaching and learning?
Joe - I'm not sure that I follow the connection between the first and second part of your message. I would be willing to help you figure out what might be happening preventing the forum messages from being sent to you. If you are subscribed to a forum and have cron.php running on your site you should definitely be receiving all the posts to those forums. Feel free to provide the URLs to the posts you have made and I'll have a look and try to comment. In terms of your question about having a forum, where were you thinking of having this forum (your server, Moodle.org?). I think the Teaching strategies forum is just fine for those types of conversations and you could have a discussion thread dedicated to Social Contructivism approches to learning and teaching. Let me know how I can be of help. Peace - Anthony
Anthony
There is at least one other discussion about email alerts and why this feature is implemented in Moodle. The reason being that it aids the social constructivism pedagogy. My particular problem is one that I believe is in a particular class and I just wonder if this class of problem should have a special forum. We have General Problems forum, Installation Problems forum so why not a Social Constructivism forum? I've come across other discussions taht would also fall into this class and they usually start with a specific problem e.g. changing the time limit for edits, turning off the edit funciton. Although are specific problems they seem to have been ultimately discussed in the context of social constructivism .
I have posted my specific queries on the Forum forums. The point here was wheter we should have a special forum for this classs of problem.
Anyway I'd be grateful if you could help. Basically it seems that if I have a forced subscribtion in a forum I do not get email alerts when something new is posted. If there is the optional subscribtion I do get email alerts.
Anyway here's the link to the problem, the updated problem is my second post in the thread: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=115132
Joe
There is at least one other discussion about email alerts and why this feature is implemented in Moodle. The reason being that it aids the social constructivism pedagogy. My particular problem is one that I believe is in a particular class and I just wonder if this class of problem should have a special forum. We have General Problems forum, Installation Problems forum so why not a Social Constructivism forum? I've come across other discussions taht would also fall into this class and they usually start with a specific problem e.g. changing the time limit for edits, turning off the edit funciton. Although are specific problems they seem to have been ultimately discussed in the context of social constructivism .
I have posted my specific queries on the Forum forums. The point here was wheter we should have a special forum for this classs of problem.
Anyway I'd be grateful if you could help. Basically it seems that if I have a forced subscribtion in a forum I do not get email alerts when something new is posted. If there is the optional subscribtion I do get email alerts.
Anyway here's the link to the problem, the updated problem is my second post in the thread: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=115132
Joe
Joe - I'm sorry but I still do not follow what you are aiming at. Could you explain what "this feature" is and what/how it aids social contructivism. Could you explain what "this class of problem" is that should have its own forum. I am not sure that having a social constructionist forum would be helpful because Moodle is modular by nature and the goal of the forums is to have a forum for each module. All of Moodle makes use of social constructionist pedagogy so the problem could be anywhere. It helps to narrow down where the issue is. I think some of the issues would certainly fall under the teacher forums - namely: teaching strategies, teaching tips and tricks, or building learning communities. Building learning communities sounds like one that might fit especially well. My general sense is that we do not need more forums and the ones we have seem to help keep things reasonably organized. It looks like your forum email issue is resolved. Let me know if you have any other questions or suggestions. Peace - Anthony
Hi Anthony
Actually thanks to your help this 'problem' was sorted some weeks ago.
As I said in my first email the problem is related to email alerts. I had read somewhere on Moodle that this is a central function which facilitates social constrtuctivism. The alerts let others know what is happening and is necessary especially in a collaborative learning situation. These alerts facilitate the social aspect of the learning
An analogy might be that if a group of deaf people in a dark room were trying to develop their knowledge as a group, the lack of communication would limit the social construction of knowledge. So if email alerts don't work the same would happen, social construction of knowledge would be impeded. That is why I felt originally that it was worth posting in this forum.
Now, as you say Moodle has this social constructionism pedagogy. My suggestion was that perhpas some issues could be categorised as impeding social constructionism being actualised as therefore could be gathered into a single forum. Lack of email alerts being one such issue. It was just a thought about how problems could be categorised in different forums on here.
But as I say, thanks to some previous help, the issue has now been sorted. But I still believe that there are more way to categorise issues.
Actually thanks to your help this 'problem' was sorted some weeks ago.
As I said in my first email the problem is related to email alerts. I had read somewhere on Moodle that this is a central function which facilitates social constrtuctivism. The alerts let others know what is happening and is necessary especially in a collaborative learning situation. These alerts facilitate the social aspect of the learning
An analogy might be that if a group of deaf people in a dark room were trying to develop their knowledge as a group, the lack of communication would limit the social construction of knowledge. So if email alerts don't work the same would happen, social construction of knowledge would be impeded. That is why I felt originally that it was worth posting in this forum.
Now, as you say Moodle has this social constructionism pedagogy. My suggestion was that perhpas some issues could be categorised as impeding social constructionism being actualised as therefore could be gathered into a single forum. Lack of email alerts being one such issue. It was just a thought about how problems could be categorised in different forums on here.
But as I say, thanks to some previous help, the issue has now been sorted. But I still believe that there are more way to categorise issues.
Joe - Thanks for clarifying. It is morning and I think my brain is somewhat more functional. I see what you mean that emails not being sent out from forum posts impedes the effectiveness by which Moodle can be used. I am not sure that most folks would understand when to post something in a Social constructionist forum and when to post something in the Forums forum. The logical place for me is to post in the module that is causing the problem. It can get challenging as some problems have a more universal nature to them (like emailing stuff out) but I think it is best for folks to think locally - that is to say, in what area am I experiencing this issue and to report it there. In your case, it was within forums and someone else may have difficulties or improvements for emailing out notices from the database module. Sometimes we create a meta-issue in the tracker to pull together such things but it tends to be the exception. There are of course many, many ways to categorize the issues and considering the complexity of Moodle I think the current system is pretty good but we are always open to suggestions and new forums if needed. Your approach of asking here on the forums is a good place to start to get a sense of how others feel. I personally don't think the social constructionist forum is needed at this point but there are over a half million other Moodlers who may have different ideas so let's see what folks think and if it seems like something the community wants/needs then we can file an issue for the MDLSITE project in the tracker. Thanks for your patience in helping me to understand your ideas and please keep fresh ideas coming. Peace - Anthony