Overview of Talk
Talk is a great way to engage with your learners, and for learners to engage with each other.
You’ll find Talk in your left menu when you’re inside one of your courses.
We’ve also got an article especially for learners on How to use talk which gives them some additional pointers on replying to others.
Note: Talk channels can either be set by default for the entire organisation by an account owner, or can be customised when activating a class by a manager. They cannot be set up by a facilitator without these permissions.
Navigation and search
Switch between channels by selecting the channel name in the left pane.
Use the Search at the top of Talk to find that particular piece of information you were looking for. You can search based on a keyword, or based on a person’s name.
Types of channels
Channels can be Public, Group or Private (if enabled).
Public channels are open to the entire class. Most of your channels are likely to be public. These channels can be set to announcement or broadcast only, This means that only facilitators can post messages, but learners can still respond.
Group channels are often used for group work within a larger class. For more information on how to set up group access, see this article.
Private channels allow learners to privately message their course facilitator(s). A course must have at least one facilitator for the private talk channel to show.
Making your own posts
To make your own post, navigate to the channel you want to post to and select Post.
You’ll see you have options to format and add to your post.
You can add attachments, links, format your text e.g. add a bullet, link, or bold key words
Deleting and hiding posts
If you want to permanently delete a post you have made, you can do this by selecting the delete icon, you will then be prompted to give a reason. You can delete posts that you are the author of (this goes for learners too). If you have a post that has had replies, you can only hide it, and any replies will still be visible.
If you see a learner's post that you think needs to hidden from view, you can hide it by clicking hide icon on the relevant post, you will then be prompted to give a reason.
Note: You can also unhide a post that you have hidden, by clicking the show icon.
Reported posts/hiding posts
Learners have the option to Report a post. As a facilitator, you will just see the option to Hide a post (as you don’t need to report it to yourself!)
When a learner reports a post, the post will become hidden for them, and you will see it show in your Moderation channel (see below for further details).
Moderating posts
All posts that have been reported will appear in your Moderation channel for you to decide to Allow or Hide, and provide a reason.
As with Likes, Reports are anonymous for learners and the person who wrote the post won’t be notified.
In-app and email notifications
If you have any unread Talk channel posts or responses they will show in the in-app notifications appearing by the bell icon in the top right-hand corner of iQualify and next to the talk icon (green circle icon). Unread channels will appear bold so that you and your learners can easily see which threads have unread posts.
Facilitators and learners will get an in-app notification when others respond to threads they have created or replied to. You can also enable email notifications.
Note: email notifications default to off so you need to turn on email notifications if you want to receive them.