To help minimise the spread of Coronavirus, more and more organisations are recommending employees to work from home instead of attending their usual place of work. Below are some useful tips for setting up a home office and successful collaboration with your colleagues using Moodle LMS.

Helpful tips to keep in mind when setting up your own home office

Dedicated space

You can have quite a few distractions while working from home (TV, Food, Kids etc.). Having a dedicated space can help you focus on your work and keep those distractions at bay. It doesn’t have to be a large space, just somewhere in the house where you can setup a desk and focus on your work. Ensure you have adequate lighting for the task to be performed and clear walkways free of trip hazards such as electrical cords.

Communication

It is important to maintain contact when working from home or in isolation. Using tools to help you collaborate with your team, will help you feel more engaged with your colleagues. Programs like Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, GoToMeeting etc. will allow you to Chat and Web conference. Why not end the week with a weekly Friday afternoon video chat to kick off the weekend?

Health and Safety

Correct workstation setup is important for your Health and Safety. A home office could include a table or desk, a supportive chair, an external monitor, keyboard and mouse. Ensure you have sufficient clear space so you can move without strain or injury. Take regular breaks and stretch while you’re working. As a guide, try and change position every 30 minutes and take a short break every 90 mins.  

Moodle features that help you work from home

Not every organisation has access to big brand collaboration tools, but if you have Moodle, you have all the tools you might need. Moodle has some great features that can help your team work and collaborate better from a home/remote environment. Mentioned below are few of many tools available in Moodle:

Forums

The forum activity module enables participants to have asynchronous discussions over an extended period of time. There are several forum types to choose from, such as a standard forum where anyone can start a new discussion at any time; a forum where each student can post exactly one discussion; or a question and answer forum where students must first post before being able to view other students’ posts. find out more

Chat

The chat activity module enables participants to have text-based, real-time synchronous discussions. The chat may be a one-time activity or it may be repeated at the same time each day or each week. Chat sessions are saved and can be made available for everyone to view or restricted to users with the capability to view chat session logs. find out more

Web Conferencing

Host online meetings, webinars and chat using the following Web Conferencing Tools. Install one of the Community plugins and allow users to join a meeting directly from your course.

• BigBlueButton
• Zoom
• Adobe Connect

You can either use these in individual courses that have been assigned to various departments or global activities that can be accessed by the whole organisation.

Good luck and Stay Safe!