Autocreate a group for each student in the course and the group name set to the first and last name

I would like the option to autocreate a group for each student in the course and the group name set to the first and last name.

This would allow the other modules to be used in additional ways e.g. establishing a FORUM (with seperate mode) called something like PRIVATE DISCUSSIONS WITH THE TEACHER & IN EACH GROUP.

The advantage of using a FORUM for private discusisons with the teacher is is that the communication is all deates stampted, easily searchable and threaded under each topic. Another advantage over DIALOGUE is that the threads can be renamed or split if needed.

I suggested this in http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=132556 and there was quite a lot of support

Re: Autocreate a group for each user with the group name set to their name
by Martin Huntley - Friday, 2 October 2009, 03:57 PM
First, I think it's very useful to be able to do this. Setting up a forum with separate groups created this way is, IMHO, a much better way of providing a tool for student reflective journaling. I find it much better than the deprecated Journal, or the Online Assignment tool. (I haven't explored the Dialogue module.)

Second, I found (to my surprise) that when I bulk add users I can automatically create a group for each one, named for that person, by including Group columns (named Group1 for Course1, Group2 for Course2 etc.) in the data input, with the name of each person as the group name on their row of the input. (I use Excel to create the input file, and so just use a calculation to create the group names.)

However, what you're describing would be helpful when there was a need to create such groups after enrollments have all been done, and it needed to be done by an editingteacher who might not otherwise have access to bulk user account creation.

So, you have my vote.

(Incidentally, I'm using 1.9.4+.)

Re: Autocreate a group for each user with the group name set to their name
by Sal Iacono - Friday, 13 November 2009, 02:38 AM
YES!

I would absolutely love the ability to create groups of one using student name as the group name. What you describe is what I do for each course manually every semester. It is truly a great way to communicate with them one-on-one and it gives the shy student the ability to ask questions they might not normally ask in class.

In fact I posted at one point asking if anyone knew a way to do this very thing...but I received no response.

PLEASE OH PLEASE add it to the tracker!

Re: Autocreate a group for each user with the group name set to their name
by Rod Spears - Friday, 13 November 2009, 02:32 PM
Yes Peter, I think it would be very useful. We also use this type of forum for private communication between teachers and students and I also think it is a good way to journal. Even though you can accomplish this by uploading a file, you must either have the role of admin or a custom role. It would be great if teachers could use the auto-create groups option to give the group the same name as the student.