Moodle 2.0

Adding Social Activities
to Your Course
Social course activities encourage student-to-student interaction. Peer interaction is
one of the most powerful learning tools that Moodle offers. It not only encourages
learning, but also exploration. It also makes courses more interesting because
students can share their knowledge, which increases student participation and
satisfaction. This chapter teaches you how to add social resources to a course, and
how to make the best use of them.
Chat
The Chat module creates a chat room where students can have real-time, online
chats. Online chat has some unique advantages over an in-person classroom
discussion. Students do not need to deal with a fear of public speaking, transcripts
can be edited and used as course material, and conversation can proceed at
a leisurely pace that gives participants time to think. The key to using these
advantages is preparation. Prepare your students by ensuring that they understand
chat room etiquette and know how to use the software. Prepare yourself by having
material ready to copy and paste into the chat. And everyone should be prepared to
focus on the goals and subject of that chat. More than any other online activity, chat
requires that the teacher take a leadership role and guide the students to a successful
learning experience.
When you add a chat room to a course, any student taking the course can enter that
chat room at any time. The chat room can become a meeting place for the students
taking the course, where they can come to collaborate on work and exchange
information. If you give group assignments, or have students rate other students'
assignments, consider adding a chat room to the course and encouraging students
to use it. Also, consider saving transcripts of the chat sessions so that they can act as
another reference tool for the students.