First steps with Forums
Until now much of your participation in this course has involved reading the Student
Guide and referring to items on screen. In this section we will start to use Forums to
communicate with other participants in the course.
Read through this resource to learn about the basics of using forums, you will be
asked to complete an exercise using this information later.
To open a Forum click on the name of the forum to the right of the Forum icon. The
example below shows this for the “Forum – first steps” Forum.
When you first enter the Forum you will see a screen something like this:
When you have entered a Forum you can normally start or add to a discussion (in the
example above no discussions have been started yet). Starting or adding to a
discussion within a Forum is known as “posting”.
A forum containing a discussion will look like this:
Note the various headings which provide a key to the information in the columns.
In the example above, to start a new discussion you would click on this:
To append to a discussion already taking place you would click on this:
Whichever you do, you will be presented with a screen in which you can compose
your discussion post, chose whether you receive a copy of replies to your post, upload
a file attachment and save your post to the discussion.
At the top of the screen you will see a field in which you type the subject of your post
In addition, you will see a larger text entry area to enter the post itself.
Depending on the settings chosen by the site administrator, you will see a plain text
entry area or the following one which offers a range of formatting options.
Rich Text HTML editor
The Rich Text HTML editor allows you to easily add formatting and other items to
your text.
The following is a brief guide to the options available:
Enter the subject of your discussion here.
Select a font from the drop down list. (Note: the eventual
appearance on screen may be affected by your browser
settings.
Select a font size from the options in the drop down list.
Select a formatting style from the options in the drop
down list.
- - - Font formatting buttons – bold, italic, underline,
strikethrough.
- Font formatting buttons – subscript, superscript.
Copy, paste, delete.
Clean Word HTML, use to remove unnecessary code in
HTML pasted from Microsoft Word.
Undo, redo last action.
Align text or objects. Left, centre, right, justified (text
only).
Text direction. Left-right or right-left.
Bullet options. Numbered, standard.
Text position. Outdent, indent.
Text colour options. Font colour, fill colour
Add line.
Hyperlink. Create, break.
Insert picture.
Insert table.
Add emoticon. Used to add sentiment to a text entry.
Add character / symbol.
Toggle HTML source. Displays HTML formatting code.
Enlarge editing area.
Editing area
Editor guidance. Click on the to access.
Some forum options
To complete your post there are some additional options for you to consider before
submitting.
Subscription
This option determines whether you will receive copies of forum posts by email to the
email address you have entered in your profile.
Attachment
If you wish, you may add a file attachment to your post. The maximum file size you
may attach is set by the site administrator; in the example above it the maximum
attachment size is 500Kb.
Save changes
Clicking this button will submit your post to the forum discussion.
Viewing the discussion
After clicking on “Save changes” your forum posting will be displayed.
In the lower right corner are some options:
Show parent
This option will display the post above yours if you are replying to an existing
discussion.
Edit
This option allows you to edit your post for a short while – normally 30 minutes is
allowed for revisions.
Delete
Click on this to delete the post.
Reply
This allows you to add a reply to this post.
Time to try it out
The best way to become familiar with Forums is to try them out.
1. Using the Forum called “Forum – first steps”, start a discussion with some
interesting information about yourself (anything will do).
2. Reply to the discussions started by other participants in the course – either by
accessing the discussion on the course page or by replying to the emails
generated as a result of the postings.
3. Reply to at least two postings of others.
Your teacher will start some further discussions to help you discover more of the
options available in forums.