1. Moodle (Course Management Systems)

2. Forums, Chats, and Messaging

3. Chats The Moodle chat module is a simple synchronous communication tool allowing you and your students to communicate in real time. In a chat, everyone needs to be logged in at the same time in order to communicate.

4. Creating a Chat To use the chat tool, you will need to create a chat room for you and your students and set a time when everyone will log in and meet. You can create one session for the entire course or set up repeating sessions for multiple meetings. To create a chat session: 1.Click the “Turn editing on” button. 2.Select Chat from the “Add an activity” drop-down menu in the course section where you would like to add the chat. 3.In the resulting page, give the chat room a name and provide directions on how to use the room in “Introduction text.” 4.Set the time for the first chat session in “Next chat time.”

5. Creating a Chat (cont) 5.Select the general options for the chat room: Repeat sessions There are four options here: Don’t publish any chat times Creates a chat room that is always open and has no specified meeting times No repeats Creates a one-time chat room that will meet only during the time specified in step 4 At the same time every day Creates an entry in the course calendar for a daily chat at the time specified in step 4 At the same time every week Creates a weekly entry in the course calendar Save past sessions When a chat is complete, the transcript will be available for the amount of time specified here. Everyone can view past sessions This determines whether transcripts are available to students or just the teacher.

6. Creating a Chat (cont) 6.Select the common module options: Group mode This is another location in which to set the group mode for the activity. Visible This determines whether students may view the activity or not. 7.Click the “Save changes” button.

9. Chat room versions An ordinary one. without frames and JavaScript.

10. An ordinary one

11. without frames and JavaScript

12. Creative Chat Practices Online office hours Many students may not be able to come to your office hours, particularly working students, who have arranged their schedules to make it to class. The chat room is an easy way to allow your students to contact you during a scheduled time to ask a quick question about an assignment or a lecture. Group chats If you’ve set up student groups, each group can have its own chat. Set up a chat room and set the group mode to separate or visible groups. Each group can then use its chat room for communication between group members. Last-minute exam preparation You could set up a chat room a week or even a night before an examination for students to discuss any study questions. Students who are working at the last minute will appreciate the opportunity to ask each other questions about the material.

13. Summary The key to a successful chat is good moderation. The nature of the chat room makes it difficult to track different conversations. If everyone in the class is talking at the same time, the conversation will go by too quickly. It’s important to set some ground rules to make the chat useful for everyone. Try to keep everyone on the same track of the conversation. If the conversation starts to get out of control, gently try to bring people back to the main flow.