Anyone using Social course format?

Anyone using Social course format?

by Helen Foster -
Number of replies: 6
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Hello everyone,

Do you use Social course format? If so, could you use Single activity format course of type Forum instead?

The reason why I ask is because I'm thinking we can maybe remove Social format in Moodle 4.4 (MDL-79916) and make Moodle a tiny bit simpler. As for other plugins we have from standard Moodle, Social format can then be added to the Moodle plugins directory for any sites that wish to use it.

Please let us know what you think of removing Social format, either by replying to this discussion or by voting or commenting in MDL-79916.

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In reply to Helen Foster

Re: Anyone using Social course format?

by Emma Richardson -
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I love the idea of Social format and probably would use it if it was better designed...so my preference would be to redesign it and keep it!!
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In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Anyone using Social course format?

by Helen Foster -
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Thanks Emma for your feedback. I searched in the tracker but couldn't find any suggested improvements to the Social format.

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In reply to Helen Foster

Re: Anyone using Social course format?

by John Provasnik -
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Hi Helen,
My thoughts -- I think it's a great idea to simply things and stick with one format versus having both since they are essentially the same. But,  but there are 2 great behaviors that are unique to Social Format that we'd lose if it were to be deprecated, so if both formats cold be 'combined' then I'd think that'd be the win-win 

1. Social Format does not automatically Hide all other course activities when changing to this course format; whereas, Single Activity Format does automatically Hide all other activities in the course.

Which behavior would be preferred? I dislike the the automatic Hiding because it ignores all the current visibility state set by the teacher for  the other course activities (and you can't plan ahead and set some things as Visible and some things in Stealth before changing formats). A teacher already has the option manually Hide or delete unneeded activities before changing the course to Single Activity Format, and attempting to change back these automatically Hidden activities back to Visible or Stealth after the fact is not straightforward and requires adding the Activities block or toggling between course formats a few more times.

2. The "Social Activities Block" can only be added to Social Format courses -- it would be extremely useful to also be able to add this into Single Activity Format courses (which would also help with issue 1 above so a teacher could just add new activities instead of figuring out how to get those automatically Hidden activities to be accessible). I see the "Social Activities Block" as essentially the same as the Front Page's "Main Menu Block", just at the course-level.

Example Use Case: a Scorm activity set to Single Activity Format could have a Feedback activity added into the "Social Activities Block" without the needing to manually paste a link into the Scorm Description area to directing users to a Stealth-ed Feedback activity in the course.

So I almost feel Social Activities format (if it could be revised to allow it to be "any" activity, not just a forum) behaves better than Single Activity format...
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In reply to Helen Foster

Re: Anyone using Social course format?

by Lillie Williams -
We use Social Format and it would be really hard to see it go away. (I've been hoping for some improvements.) It's not the same as the single activity format for the reasons that John provided already. Also, the social format and social learning features are becoming a big deal where I work.
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In reply to Lillie Williams

Re: Anyone using Social course format?

by Helen Foster -
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Thanks John for your feedback and for describing the differences between Social course format and Single activity format.

It would indeed be good if we could make Single activity format behave like Social course format with regard to not hiding other course activities, and be able to add the Social activities block to Single activity format.

Good to hear from you too Lillie, as a user of Social course format. Can you maybe describe the improvements that you'd like to have?

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In reply to Helen Foster

Re: Anyone using Social course format?

by Lillie Williams -

Hi, so sorry it took so long to reply to this! Here are some improvements we’d like to see with Social Format:

1.) A student can currently create a post from the main course page, somewhat like a social feed. However, once they click on “Post to Forum” the page navigates to the forum page. To make this more modern and in-line with expected user experience for students familiar with social sites, the student should stay on the main course page after posting and not be directed to a page with all of the forum topics.

2.) We should be able to add reactions to posts on the social format course page— for example thumbs up, smile, sad, etc. Most social platforms allow reactions currently and even Zoom has them. I think this is a feature that could be enabled or disabled within a particular course in case there are course settings where reactions are not appropriate.

3.) Currently, choosing “Discuss this topic” takes the student to a new page to post a reply. Instead, we would like the behavior to be more like modern platforms— when you click on ‘Discuss this topic’ a comment box should appear on the same page, without redirecting to another page.

4.) Ideally, the social format could integrate with giphy and have a button to add a gif to the reply.

5.) When students are replying to a topic, there should be buttons for recording audio or video as a response (without having to click, ‘Advanced’.

All of these suggestions are to both bring the format up-to-par with modern social platform/ discussion / community expectations that students are already familiar with and to increase engagement for better social learning.

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