Designing the learning environment

Good communication paths are critical for a learning environment. One-way communication and interactive dialogue present content, check and expand knowledge, and give guiding feedback to learners. Logistical information and social interaction are also critical for a successful, supportive learning environment. 

A communication strategy determines how the various interaction modes are supported.

• Teacher--Student interaction
  • Which activities and resources will be used to communicate the content, discuss it with learners, and provide feedback? Pages, Forums, Books, Lessons, Quizzes, etc. allow learners to control the pace, but Chat and other live communications tools outside Moodle can create additional engagement. 
• Student--Student interaction
  • Learners like to be able discuss the course with one another. Will you use Forums or other collaborative activities (such as Wikis or community Blogs)? Will you offer both synchronous (live) and asynchronous options for interaction?
• Student--Content interaction
  • Learners will no doubt read and view content presented in Pages, Books, and Lessons, but they will think even more deeply about it if content questions and exercises are included within Lessons and Quizzes.
• Teacher--Teacher interaction
  • If a course is being taught or developed by more than one teacher, options for private discussion need to be available if they are not at the same location. Teacher Forums can be hidden from participants. 

Unit 1 focuses on creating the communication strategy and communicating about the learning environment. How to use Moodle tools for teaching the content is discussed in more detail in Units 3 and 4. 

Remember that Moodle is not only for distance learning courses. Moodle is also a valuable tool to enhance communications in classroom courses.