Communication (synchronous and asynchronous) were at the front of my mind as I designed my course within Moodle. I wanted to be sure to facilitate and foster a community of inquiry. I was especially driven by Anderson’s (2008) model for online learning. I was particularly intrigued by his thoughts regarding the importance of having aa community-centered approach for online learning.
Thus, I created general and specific discussion forums. There is a general news forum for announcements and then there are topic specific forums. I also included a Q&A forum in which a user can submit a question. This functions different than the other forums in that it divides the forum up into specific questions. In this way, I will build a user generated FAQ’s for the course which will hopefully tailor the answers to each course.
I also have decided to include a weekly live chat (Thursdays at 4 pm). This is also designed to foster community.
When I look at some of the available tools within Moodle, I see some further potential for other tools to be used such as the wiki. I can see that with further development of some of the modules, students could work on creating a wiki on some of the content areas. This can be done on a individual, group, or course level. This is a great asynchronous tool that would be quite interesting to use in building a community of learners.
I also have looked at the tools and plugins avaialble through Moodle and have seen that there are a number of options for incorporating various synchronous live audio/video chats. These seem appealing but they seem to require a bit more technical knowledge of the workings of programming, coding, etc. than what I have at this time.
However, I believe that I have at the very least a basic and essential system in place for communication both in synchronous and asynchronous formats. The live chats each week will build community in real time and the discussion forums will help flesh out our ideas within each week. Perhaps, as I grow in my technical skills, I will better be able to leverage some of the other tools within Moodle.
References:
Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a theory of online learning.. In: Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University.