e-Communication for Teaching

Part of Nickels is an integrated communication system, including messaging and discussion boards. Actually, there are two possibilities of e-communication within the teaching area (A. and B.).
The counterpart of e-communication for teaching is represented by the communication for learners.

This page will give a brief overview about useful e-communication scenarios in higher university education.

A. Use of Forums in Nickels

For tutors, Nickels provides the possibility to set up forums to enable communication between the users of a certain seminar.

1. First you have to log into your Nickels account.
2. Choose the seminar where you would like to set up a forum and switch into tutor's mode.
3. Choose the tab 'Forums' (see fig. 1 below) where you have to click 'New forum' to install a forum within your seminar.
   
   Fig. 1: The tab 'Forums' provides the button 'New Forum'.
4. Choose a language, enter a title and a description (optional) in the appearing panel. Then 'Create a forum'.
   
   Fig. 2: Enter a title and a description (optional).
5. Then test your new forum in learner's mode. The check 'Monitoring' enables the notification about new posts. The forum should look like the one in figure 3 below!
   
   Fig. 3: A new forum in a Nickels seminar.
6. End of part A.

B. Communication via messages to subscribed users

Another form of communication in Nickels is the exchange of messages. The tutor can achieve all subscribed users of a certain seminar with this function of communication. The learners are able to answer these messages (for more information see communication for learners).

1. Log into your Nickels account and choose the seminar where the users should receive a message.
2. Switch to tutor's mode and select the seminar in the live tree.
3. Choose the tab 'User' on the right side - here all subscribed users of your seminar are listed.
4. The buttons 'Message to all users' and 'Message to all users (incl. AICC-Users)' provide the function of entering messages to the users listed above and if desired also the users which are enrolled via AICC (see fig. 4 below).
   
   Fig. 4: A tutor's panel for user administration in a certain seminar. Below Nickels provides the function of messaging.
5. That's it!