Some people think of Forums and Chat activities as being interactive, but they do not look at the collaborative nature of the activity. In Moodle, the instructor has the opportunity to make all the discussion activities at a place where students can learn to collaborate with each other as they post their papers, read and post on their fellow students, and work together in peer reviews of papers and other work.
All interaction in Moodle involves collaboration, at least at a very basic level.
Collaboration and interaction in Moodle can be either synchronous or asynchronous. Asynchronous interaction (discussion boards, forums, wikis) can form the foundation of the course and help develop a viable, thriving learning community. In the previous chapter, we discussed how we can put together a course built around Forums, and that the advantages to such arrangements include the ability for students and the instructor to discuss the instructional materials (texts...