Haven't you heard? It's all about the social learning! Learning together not only makes learning more effective in all fields, whether it be business, marketing, or whatever your learning is about - but it's also a lot more enjoyable! And the best part - LearningZone has the tools, built right into the system, to do just that! Let's see how:
So what's a forum?
A forum is a built-in feature in your LearningZone; where you have the ability to create forums and manage them as well.
A forum can have many uses: a social space for employees to get to know each other, managing discussion groups around the topics taught in your courses or reading materials, a platform for continuation of a discussion that was started in a face-to-face forum, or a knowledge base for managers, instructors, and employees where they can seek the advice and information they need.
The messages in a forum aren't limited to text only, and can be combined in each message or response with a media component, such as: pictures, videos, and links that can help expand on, enrich, or make the information clearer and more accessible to everyone.
The forum activity allows users to have non-synchronized conversations as well. This means that conversations may span weeks and are not limited to a one-time live event.
So how do we do this?
Creating Forums
A forum is one of the activities offered inside a course, and so it must be made in a course. If you have yet to make a new course, check out our articles in our Knowledge base on how to create and manage new courses.
Step 1: After creating a new course or opening a new one, click 'Turn Editing On'. Then, click 'Add an Activity or Resource'.
Step 2: In the list that opens, select 'Forum'
Step 3: Fill out these general settings according to the following guidelines:
Remember! Some of these settings may not appear in your system based on different administrator settings.
- Forum Name - mandatory field. The name of the forum will appear in the name of the activity shown in the course.
- Description - mandatory field. Here, the users will be able to see the forum's background information and main purpose.
- Display Description on Course Page - if you choose to mark this box, the description you wrote in the previous setting will be shown under the forum name in the course page.
- Forum Type - here you can choose the type of forum you'd like based on your needs. There are several types of forums:
A Single Simple Discussion - this forum contains a single topic, displayed all on one page. This option is great for short, focused discussions.
Standard Forum for General Use - this is an open forum where anyone can suggest a topic of discussion. This is the best type of forum to use for general use, for any goal.
Each Person Posts One Discussion - this type of forum allows each person to publish exactly one topic of discussion (which all the other users can respond to)
Q and A Forum - this forum requires the user to respond himself before he can view other users' responses.
- Rating; Aggregate Type - the aggregation type sets how a user's answer ratings are combined to produce his final grade. There are several options: Average of Ratings, Count of Rating, Maximum, Minimum, and Sum.
Tips and Suggestions:
- You can use forums to manage the already existing knowledge pool in your organization. For example: you can create a 'Questions' forum - where managers and employees can bring up topics and discussion questions, and then freely answer them, while using their fellow colleagues to gain information and enrich themselves.
- The forum can also serve as a social platform for the employees, for general announcements, personal notifications and more.
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