Not sure if this should be here or in the developer forum.
I am looking to create a private forum that acts kind of like a journal. The students can post topics for the teacher to respond to but only the student and teacher have access.
What I am doing right now is placing each student into a group and setting the forum to separate groups. This is proving to be a bit of a pain as if new students join the course new groups have to be created. Not so bad if there are a few students but when you get into 50+ it's quite tedious.
I guess I am looking for a new forum type but I don't know enough about the Moodle structure to figure out how to develop it on my own.
Anybody have any ideas?
You can do this with groupings -put each student into their own individual group with you as the teacher and then make a grouping of all those students -then make a forum and set the forum for that grouping only. Make it a standard forum and then post the message for each student to reply to in each of the individual groups. With separate groups as you have set, and with groupings, they will only be able to see their own forum and nobody else's but you will be able to see all of them.
I think you are also looking for a way to not create each group manually. A flat file will do this, I believe, but I don't have the expertise to tell you how to do it.
I am looking for a way to do it without using groups at all. We don't want the extra added step of having to create a group (manually or by flat file) every time a new student is added to the course.
Basically I would like it to function like the online assignment, where only teacher and student have access to the students submission, but with the ability to add topics like a forum. The online assignment is great for a single use but when the student needs to make multiple submissions it gets way to long and hard to read.
Basically I would like it to function like the online assignment, where only teacher and student have access to the students submission, but with the ability to add topics like a forum. The online assignment is great for a single use but when the student needs to make multiple submissions it gets way to long and hard to read.
You might want to look at the Wiki activity. You can set the type to 'student' with no groups.
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Wiki_module
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Wiki_module
Another option to check is the dialog module.
I have been working on doing the exact same thing here: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=118533 and what I've found to be a useful alternative is by using the Feedback activity and then only restricting the viewing of submitted responses to the teacher.
The reason I'm doing it is for a weekly definition of key terms, and I'm just entering the entire text into the question type box and then providing a longer text input area form to allow the students to respond in that area. That way the teacher is the only person who can view the responses.
You stated that you wanted to update the topics, or add to them, and you can do that by simply creating a new question each time you want to make that change. That option adds it to your question bank and you can then select the questions you want to make visible. You can set the number of times that they are allowed to attempt a response to whatever you need for your specific application, but I haven't been able to make this activity communicate with any gradebook settings yet (which is a problem I'm currently working on overcoming).
I'll keep you updated on anything I find and meanwhile you should also view the replies in the discussion I started since I'm working with the same issue here
Best,
Brett
The reason I'm doing it is for a weekly definition of key terms, and I'm just entering the entire text into the question type box and then providing a longer text input area form to allow the students to respond in that area. That way the teacher is the only person who can view the responses.
You stated that you wanted to update the topics, or add to them, and you can do that by simply creating a new question each time you want to make that change. That option adds it to your question bank and you can then select the questions you want to make visible. You can set the number of times that they are allowed to attempt a response to whatever you need for your specific application, but I haven't been able to make this activity communicate with any gradebook settings yet (which is a problem I'm currently working on overcoming).
I'll keep you updated on anything I find and meanwhile you should also view the replies in the discussion I started since I'm working with the same issue here
Best,
Brett
Hi Kate. As mentioned by Robert you should take a look at the Dialogue module as it sounds like it meets all the requirements you mention. I've just updated the wiki page for it to give you a better idea of what its capable of, feel free to post queries to the discussion forum for the module which is linked off the following page..
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Dialogue_module
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Dialogue_module
You might want to look at a Database activity.
- Create a new Database activity
- Set it so that entries require approval. This makes it so that only you and the student can see the student's entries.
- Leave maximum entries at none.
- Create the fields that you want to use for the discussion with fields for the student to enter data and fields for the teacher to respond.
Now a student can create as many entries as they want and you as the teacher can reply. You can then build a template to view a list of entries in a way that will show you all of the records for each student when you filter for each student.
So if you want to see this in action you can go to my dev course and try it out. The database activity can be found at: http://orwinconsulting.com/moodle/mod/data/view.php?id=1017
The page will show "No entries in database" because you haven't logged in. Click on the login button at the bottom of the screen and use one of these accounts to see how it works:
- Username: demo1 Password: demo1 (this account has teacher rights on the sample database so you can see all of the options.
- Username: demo2 Password: demo2 (student account)
- Username: demo3 Password: demo3 (student account)
- Username: demo4 Password: demo4 (student account)
- Username: demo5 Password: demo5 (student account)
Just another option to think about.
Good Luck,
Randy
I just thought I should say no groups required for this method. Another option is to not put the teacher area in the form and just turn on comments on the config page and let the teacher provide comments this way. You can see an example of this if you look at entries by the demo5 user. I have also attached a preset to this post if you want to try it out. It is from 1.9.7.
Randy
Facinating Randy!!
I've created a tracker item for this hre: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-27223
"At present in Moodle 2+ there is no quick way for a teacher to open up a 1-1 dialogue with all students in the class, like a private forum, dialogue etc.
*Groups can do it of course. But the overhead of renaming groups for everyone with their names means this is not a 'quick' way. I did find this tracker item from December: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-21000
*Dialogue module can do it, but it is not in the core. http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/CONTRIB-2059
*Assignment can do it of course: but this has the wrong hegemony, with the idea of 'black hat' assessment rather than formative conversations.
I have thought a bit before creating this as an issue. It is the functionality I think Moodle needs, HOW it is done I'm not too worried about. I'm sure I have seen other tracker issues over the months to try to address this, and as I find them I'll comment"