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Moodle: Communicating through Announcements and Quickmail 

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In this guide:

About Moodle

Moodle has 2 primary tools for communicating with students – Announcements and Quickmail.  

Announcements are ideal for updating students with important information about coursework, events, and changes to the schedule. Messages posted through the announcements tool are also sent to students’ emails making it invaluable when you need to contact your entire class.   

Quickmail is a useful tool for adhoc communication with individuals and groups of students. Quickmail’s enables you to select specific recipients; however, unlike the Announcements tool, there is no record of your message for staff and students to revisit on Moodle. For this reason, we recommend using the announcements tool for the majority of messages. 

Communicating through Announcements 

  1. Login to Moodle and go to the relevant Moodle site. 
  1. Open the Announcements area. 
Moodle interface for announcements and discussions
  1. Select the target Group if available or required.
  1. Select Add new topic.
Interface of the announcements section. there is a drop down menu for separate groups. Under that, there is a button labelled "Add new topic"
  1. Add a title in the Subject then the body of the Message before Posting to forum. Select ‘Pinned’ if you want the message to remain at the top of the announcements area. If you select Post a copy to all groups, you will send 1 copy of the message for every group to every enrolled tutor.
Moodle Announcement page interface with options to add subject, message and other options.

Using Groups for Announcements

Groups can be used to:

  • Selectively reveal content and activities to specific groups.
  • Control who receives announcements and Quickmail notifications.
  • Create Moodle chatrooms for specific groups of students.

How to create a group:

  1. Go to Moodle, login and go to the relevant Moodle site.
  2. Select the Settings Icon. 
  3. Choose More.
Moodle dashboard interface - on the right side, there is a settings icon. On the menu, there is an option for "More".
  1. Select the Users tab. 
  2. Choose Groups.
Interface of the course administrator user menu. User options include Enrolled users, groups and other users. Groups option is highlighted.
  1. Select Create Groups 
Interface for groups. Menu shows option to create group.
  1. Add a Group Name and brief description. 
interface for creating a new group. Area to add information such as group name and group descriptions.
  1. Select the group name. 
  1. Select Add/remove Users.
Interface of groups. Button on right labelled "Add/ remove users".
  1. Add users from the potential members column to the group members column using the Add button.
Group interface with two columns - left column if for group members. Right column is for potential members.

Adding a Quickmail block

  1. Go to Moodle, login and go to the relevant Moodle site.
  1. Select Edit Content.
Moodle dashboard - one button with the setting icon. second button labelled Edit content.
  1. Open the Navigation Panel.
  1. Select Add a block.
Moodle menu with options for site home, accessibility report, site administration and "Add a block".
  1. Select Quickmail. A Quickmail block will appear, usually on the right sidebar.
Moodle Add block menu with options such as Accessibility, Activities, and Quick mail.
Quickmail block that will appear on the sidebar, right side on the moodle interface

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