Today’s #uptechtip came out of a meeting I had with a faculty member who incorporates frequent, low-stakes writing into his course – pages a week, reams per semester. To save paper and make life easier, he was looking for a way to transition this activity to the digital realm. One obvious solution would be to use Moodle forums. However, in this context, the student writing was intended to be private – just between the student and the instructor. After talking about his teaching strategies and goals, we arrived at the Moodle Journal tool. The Journal allows students to write (or copy/paste) a weekly entry straight into a text field in Moodle. The course teacher can review, give feedback, and assign a grade if desired, and the journals are not visible to other students.
The Journal tool is a plugin – it isn’t a part of the core Moodle code – so you can’t count on all the same advanced functionality that you get with Assignments or Forums – but for some faculty, this is going to be a simple, easy to use tool that meets your needs. If you are looking for a digital solution to facilitate frequent, low-stakes writing, it’s well worth considering, along with Moodle Assignments, Forums, or collaboration tools like Microsoft’s OneNote Class Notebook.
#uptechtip: Use the Moodle Journal Activity for Low Stakes Writing
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