How to access the Post text widget

Widgets are the tools with which course administrators create and build the pages of their course. 

The Post text widget can be used to allow learners to post text and for that text to potentially be shared to a Gallery widget. 

In order to access the Post text widget: 

1. Go to the page in your course where you'd like to add this widget.
2. Select Edit mode.
3. In the lefthand widget menu, click on the Post text widget icon (or you can hold and drag it wherever you'd like on the page).

Note: adding the Post text widget to a page will automatically add a Gallery widget too. 

How to set up the Post text widget

After adding a Post text widget to your page, you can set it up by following the instructions below: 

1. Click on the Setup tab at the top of the widget.
2. Title: Add a title for the widget.
3. Label: You can change the label to replace the default "Share your thoughts".
4. Text Type: Choose from the following:

   Formatted Text - allows rich text formatting with links, images, etc.

   Plain Text - no text formatting, just text.

5. Other Settings: 

   Set a word limit- Tick the box to the left of this in order to set a word limit. Then, enter the word limit into the box on the right.

   Turn off default browser spelling/grammar checks-tick this box to turn off spelling and grammar checking that your computer or web browser runs by default.

6. Input template: The post is automatically populated with this text, which can then be edited. 

Note: the posts learners submit through the Post text widget will be displayed in the Gallery widget.

Completion settings

Completing activities on a page is how learners make progress and receive their certificates or complete the course. 

As the administrator, you can modify how each widget tracks this progress. 

To do this, click on the Completion Settings tab on the widget and choose one of the following options: 

No completion tracking: This activity will not count towards overall course progress.

Completed when student posts some text: This activity will be marked complete once the learner posts their activity in the widget.

Post settings

The Post text widget allows learners to post their written answers to the platform. By default, when a learner makes a post, it is visible to other learners in the class. 

It is possible to change this default visibility. 

You can:

• control who can see the posts (everyone in the class or just course staff and the author);
• control when the posts can be viewed (after a certain task is completed or a specific date);
• let students control the post visibility;
• enable or disable reflections for learners; and, 
• allow group submissions.

For more detailed information on the share settings, please refer to  Post widgets: how to use share settings to control post visibility.

Reflections

Reflections is a feature to encourage a social learning experience where the learners can add their thoughts on the text, image, or file that they are about to submit using the post widget.

You can activate or deactivate this feature by checking or unchecking the 'Enable reflections for learners' option.