Reordering Discussions in the Discussion Forums Nugget

You can now change the way Discussions are listed in the Discussion Forums nugget that appears by default on the Communicate tab (and can be added to the Resources page or the Course Home page).

1. Go to the Communicate tab (or wherever your Discussion Forums nugget is located).
2. Mouse over the Discussion Forums nugget and click on the pencil icon.







3. Choose the order you would like to use to display your discussion forums within the Discussion Forums nugget.
   


4. Check the boxes for the other options you want.




5. Click the Save button.

Student Activity in Discussions

There are two places you can get information about student activity in your discussion forums.

1. The first place is in the Report tab. There are several different reports dealing with discussions, such as:
   
   · Learner Profile > Forum Posts (shows number of posts from a particular student in each forum)
   · WhoDunIt > Forum Posts (can find out who has or had not posted in a particular time interval)
   · Class > Forum Activity (can see total number of posts and replies for all students in all forums for a particular time interval)
   · Class > Forum Posts (can see total number of posts for all students in all forums for a particular time interval)


2. You can also go to a particular forum in your Lessons tab and click on the Reports link under that forum.
   
   
   
   
   
   You can then choose one of two reports:
   
   · Activity Summary (displays the number of times each user has accessed this item)
   · Activity Detail (displays the complete activity log for this item)
   

Caution About Teams

As we’ve worked with teams in Discussions, we‘ve found some interesting idiosyncrasies which can best be described using a specific example.

Students must be cautioned to know and select the correct team for each forum in which they post in order for the system to work as expected.

ANGEL allows the student to see their postings (based on their drop-down menu selection) for any team in which they are a member, without regard to the current Forum selected. That is; you can select a forum, and then select a team that is not appropriate for that forum from a drop-down menu/list. Example

• A student is assigned to Team A for Forum A and Team B for Forum B.
• The instructor assumes that when working on Forum B, the student and other team members will only see postings by other students on Team B.
• Because the student is enrolled in more than one team (for different forums), she has a drop-down menu that enables her to view and post to either Team A or Team B.
• The option to post to either Team A or Team B opens the possibility that she could respond to Forum B after selecting Team A. If this occurs, other students who are only on Team B will not see her post.
• The instructor’s assumption is that anyone assigned to Team A for Forum A will only see postings by their team members. The same assumption holds for students assigned to Team B for Forum B without regard to team assignments for other projects/forums.
• If a student selects a team to which they are not assigned for a given forum (e.g., they select Team A for a posting in Forum B), their postings are not visible to other members of the assigned team (Team B)…which gives the impression that the posting disappeared.
• The posting is still available but not visible unless the student later selects the incorrect team (Team A) for the forum (Forum B).

For instructors who use new groups for each discussion or each new unit, here’s a suggestion. Consider naming the teams to correspond to the assignment or the unit; such as, “Narrative Team 1,” Narrative Team 2,” and so on. Then, students would have “Narrative” in only one of their team names, and they could select that “narrative” team for any discussion that has “Narrative” in its title or for any discussion in the “Narrative” unit. Students would then have a list of meaningful team names rather than generic team names (such as Team A, Team B, Group 1 and so on). It would also mean the instructions in the discussion wouldn’t have to be personalized; you, as the instructor could tell students to select their “Narrative” team, for example.

Discussions: Read but No Post

In Blackboard (our former LMS), you could lock a discussion so everyone could still read it, but no one could post. You can do the same thing in ANGEL. Here's how:

1. Go to the Settings for the Discussion.
2. Select the Post Permissions tab.
3. De-select New Post and Reply.

Of course, this presents the same issues as in Blackboard--when you copy your course, you'll have to change those settings back.

800x600 Resolution

When trying to view posts within an ANGEL discussion with the screen resolution set to 800x600, you lose the scroll bar for the frame containing the postings. We’ve shared this design flaw with ANGEL. We do not find any indication in their documentation that ANGEL it is designed only for systems with a minimum screen resolution of 1024x768, but that appears to be the case.