Quickstart Guide

Notifying students in LearnBPS

How can I notify students about new assignments, tasks, etc. when using LearnBPS/Moodle?  First, we've already heard a few concerns about the number of emails students are getting (some had ~50 in their inbox on Monday).  How effective is that type of email blast is going to be?  How does a middle/high school student know which are the most important?

If teachers really want to notify their students (via email, web interface, or app (limited)), there are some options, but remember that a student controls their own notification settings, they can change it to a digest mode, web only, or turn notifications off completely.

Here are a few suggestions, one or more can be employed:

  1. Organize information into topics and use due dates, availability dates, and completion tracking with the Completion Progress block. This gives both students and teachers the ability to see engagement in activities and resources.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8hpakwfn2o
  2. Use an announcements forum with forced subscription, if you want the email to go out "immediately", choose Advanced when creating the post and choose "Send Forum post notifications with no editing-time delay".  Otherwise there is a 15 or 30 minute delay which allows the poster to edit before it is sent/posted.  If you're planning ahead, posts can be scheduled with a Display Period start date/time.
  3. Teachers can view engagement with their course by looking at the Participants link in their gear menu for the course.  there is a Last Access to Class field which shows the last time the student viewed your course.
  4. As a last resort, if we really want it, there is a "Reengagement" plugin that can be added. If added, it can be set up by the teacher to notify about specific activities before the due date.  It is far more useful if activities are planned out, so it may not help much in this situation.