The third batch of 2 Minute Moodles is all about communication tools in Moodle. These lie at the heart of Moodle’s design and philosophy and are pretty easy to set up and use. Personally, these communication tools have allowed me to check on students’ progress and understanding, ask and answer questions (often a very awkward task with teenagers in any other way), troubleshoot, advise, keep in touch, stimulate original thinking … and the list could go on.

I remain convinced that these tools are not a substitute for the human face-to-face interaction with and among the students at our school, but they have certainly made the interaction much easier, more personal and meaningful. I hope you find them useful too.

To save some real estate on the screen I have foregone the ‘Download video’ option, but you can do so via Teacher Tube where this material is published. I will probably put these on YouTube as well in the coming future (it’s a dare from my class …). Here is the third batch of ‘2 Minute Moodles’.

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Have a look how to open a (very popular) chatroom – watch video (length 2:34)

See how simple it really is to set up and run a forum (examples provided) – watch video (length 6:46)

Learn how to open a dialogue (non-standard in Moodle 1.9 but useful, examples) – watch video (length 5:23)

When enabled, messaging in Moodle is pretty easy – watch video (length 2:14)

The humble wiki is a hugely versatile staple of Moodle – watch video (length 6:36)

Ever experienced the effect of blogs on students’ literacy? Here is how to blog with Moodle – watch video (length 3:04)

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The next batch of 2 Minute Moodles will cover evaluation tools such as quiz, assignment, poll, choice, lesson, scales, grades and so on. Keep your RSS eye out for it.