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šŸ’¬Participate in discussions
šŸ’¬Participate in discussions

Learners can start discussions and reply to discussions posted by the teacher or other classmates.

Laurie Garcia avatar
Written by Laurie Garcia
Updated over a week ago

For learners

Start a new discussion from a step

If your course has discussions enabled, you can ask a question on any step by typing in the text box just below the step content. Use this to start a discussion with your teachers and classmates.Ā 

Posting your question on a particular step helps to keep the discussion in the context of what you're learning.

Add a title for your discussion question. You can optionally upload images, video, and other files from your computer and add more formatted text using the text editor.Ā Then hit "Post."

Once you post your question, any moderators or teachers on your course will be notified and can respond. Additionally, anyone else learning in the course can view and respond to your question as well.

In addition to responding, you can "like" responses using the heart icon. You can see which discussion responses have the most "likes."

When someone responds, youā€™ll get a notification by email and in the app that looks like this:Ā 

  • Click or tap the notification and it will take you to the discussion.

  • Click the three dots (...) to the right of a notification to mark as read, pin, or permanently remove the notification.

  • If you'd like to receive notifications in a daily or weekly digest, you can enable this under the notification bell icon as well.

Start a new discussion from Community

In addition to posting questions on a step, you can also post your questions or discussion topics under the Community tab. The course Community is a place where all the discussions happening throughout a course are brought together, and new unique topics can be posted.

To open the Community tab, open your course up to the Path, and then select the Community tab at the top of the Path.

Start typing in the text box at the top of the Discussion tab to post a new topic that is not related to a particular step in the course.

Add a title for your discussion question. You can optionally upload images, video, and other files from your computer and add more formatted text using the text editor. Then hit "Post."

Topics (new!)

Topics help you quickly scan and find discussions on topics of interest. If your account has pre-defined Topics available for a course you're taking, you will have the option to specify one or more Topic categories for your discussion post and filter all discussions by topic.

Reply to discussions

As you move through the course, you may come across two types of discussions to view and interact with:

  1. Course discussion questions: These are questions left by the teacher or course-creator for you to respond to as part of the step. You can also see how other learners responded by opening the discussion.

  2. Personal discussion questions: You can see any questions a staff members or fellow learner has asked by scrolling to the bottom of a step. If you think you have something to contribute to a discussion, itā€™s always helpful to dive in and respond.

  3. Community topics: These are stand-alone topics posted under the Community tab by staff or your fellow learners.

To reply, simply open the discussion, and look for a place to add your answer or reply to an existing answer and continue the conversation.

šŸ’” Tip: Reply by email. You can also respond to someone by replying to an email notification. Simply write your response above the reply line and press send. (Just be aware that your automatic email signature will be sent with your reply unless you remove it.)

How discussions work

Adding images, gifs, and emojis to your posts and replies

The text editor bar gives you access to various formatting options as well as buttons for adding images, files, hyperlinks, and even video links or embed codes.

There are no built-in gifs; however, you can save a gif to your device from your favorite gif website, then insert it using the insert image button:

Similarly, there are no built-in emojis, but you can add emojis using the emoji keyboard provided by your device:

Learn how to find your emoji keyboard on iOS, on Mac, on Windows, or on Android.

Notifications

You will automatically be notified when someone responds directly to something you have posted.

In some cases, you may want to subscribe to an individual discussion in order to get every response to that discussion, and not just direct responses to your own posts. To subscribe to a discussion, select the "Bell" icon.

To unsubscribe and stop receiving all notifications, unselect the "Bell" icon.

You can follow any notification straight to the original discussion by clicking on it. To unsubscribe, follow the notification to the discussion and then unselect the "Bell" icon to stop receiving further notifications.

šŸ’” Tip: posts with unread responses will show a colored dot notification.

Edit or delete

Hover over your discussion or post and select the additional actions icon (...) for the options to edit or delete that discussion or individual message.

Likes

Discussion posts can be "liked" using the heart icon. Each question will display the number of responses and number of "likes."

Sort

Sort any discussion with multiple posts to see a certain type of post first.

  • "Best" shows the most-liked replies first.

  • "Active" shows replies with the most responses first.

  • "Active" shows replies made most recently on top.

  • "Oldest" shows replies made most recently at the bottom.

Hide, show, and dock

On larger screens, you can hide and show the discussion window by clicking outside of it and then back into it or clicking on the arrow icon. You can also ā€œdockā€ it on the bottom of the screen instead of the right side by clicking the dock icon.

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