Instructors and students can communicate and collaborate using Moodle forums. There are multiple forum types in Moodle. Some forum types allow only the instructor to start a new topic, and others allow both instructors and students to create topics to which other learners can post a reply.
Announcements forum
This forum is automatically created in each course for instructors to post announcements. Only instructors and TAs can post to the forum, and students can only read announcement posts and cannot reply to them. All course participants receive an email copy of each post. All announcement posts appear in the Latest News block on the front page of the Moodle course.
Discussion Forum Types
1) Single simple discussion
This forum is for short-term, focused discussions. Only one topic by the instructor is allowed. Students cannot start new topics of discussion. For a discussion that is more tightly focused on a single topic, consider this forum type. Here, students and instructors are all locked into one thread together, which narrows the scope of conversation and is best when the entire class needs to attend closely to each learner's post.
2) Each person posts one discussion
Every student in the course is allowed to post ONLY ONE new discussion topic thread. Students are not limited in the number of replies they can post within those topics.
3) Q&A Forum
An instructor posts an initial discussion topic. Students must reply to the initial discussion post with their own answer before other students' replies will be visible to them. The Q&A Forum is popular with instructors who want to ensure that learners are uninfluenced by reading the work of peers who happen to post earlier in the discussion cycle.
4) Standard forum for general use
This is the most commonly used forum type. It is an open forum that allows instructors and students to create an unlimited number of discussion topic threads. Students may start their own discussion threads and reply to others, and in which discussion topics are displayed on one page.
5) Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format
This forum works like the Standard forum for general use but displays differently. It allows multiple topics listed on the same page and only the most recent topic displays at the top of the page. Students click Discuss this topic on that post to view and join in the discussion.
Return to the Forum main resource page for more information on other topics.