To enable the participants to view the old sessions we must edit the chat settings:
- Click on the edit icon for the existing chat session in Topic 4.
- Change the Everyone can view past sessions set to Yes.
- Click on Save and display.
- This is what the user will see when they click on the chat from the course view. We need to enter the chat and type some lines.
- Click on the Click here to enter the chat now link.
- This will pop up a chat window. As you can see in the following screenshot, the area on the left is where the text from the discussion appears, and on the right is the list of attendees. You use the box at the bottom to type in your text.
- Each of the text messages are stamped with the time and name of the participant who contributed. Type a message into the text box and click Send.
- Type two more messages into the textbox, clicking Send after each one.
- Close the pop-up chat window.
- Reload the chat activity page. You will see that a new option has appeared: View past chat sessions. Click on this link.
- Since we did not have a full session, it will state that it found no complete chat sessions. Click on the link List all sessions to access a list of every session, whether complete or not.
- The page will display all sessions, and in each session box it will list the participants and the number of messages they contributed in brackets after their name. For example Matt Ryan (3) in the following example.
- Click on the link for See this session. You now get a list of all the messages sent during the sessions, with the name and timestamp for each message.
By creating a chat session in Moodle we have enabled participants to role-play a sales scenario and hold a discussion afterwards about the role-play.
By providing access to past sessions to all participants, even those who were unable to attend are able to benefit from the role-play and the subsequent discussion.
In a fast changing business marketplace, it may be useful to only keep logs for a shorter period of time. How would you go about doing this?
In one of the chat discussions something confidential was mentioned, but the chat is keeping logs forever. What would you do to remove the chat history?
A product manager wants to make himself available for regular weekly-chat sessions to answer any queries on the product that people may have. How would you go about setting this up?
Do you currently use role-plays in face-to-face training? If you do use them, how do people react to role-playing? Reflect on the difference between face-to-face and online role-playing. What are the benefits of one over the other, and when is it best to use face-to-face, or best to use online?