Moodle: Course Tools: Latest News Block

The Latest News block provides access to the Announcements forum (formerly known as News forum), which is a special forum for general announcements.

Only primary instructors, non-primary instructors, and teaching assistants (TAs) can post in the Announcements forum. Students cannot post items to the Announcements forum or reply to posts. By default, all course participants are subscribed to Announcements and will receive an email when a post is made. Any post will also appear in the Latest News block. In order to use this feature, one must first add the Latest News block.

To Configure the Latest News Block:

1. Click  Edit blocks  on the Course Tools page, and find the "Latest news" block.  If it already exists, skip on to step 2.  Otherwise, select  HTML  in the Add a Block drop-down box (see Moodle: Adding a Block to Course Tools for more details on adding a block).

   

   
   The page will refresh, and the block should appear:
   
    
2. This block only uses the basic configuration options.  If you want to configure the "Where this block appears" and "On this page" sections, see Moodle: Course Tools: Adding a Block for more details.
    
3. To add a topic to the Latest News block, click Add a new topic... .  Note that you do not have to be in Edit Blocks mode to add a topic.  This will take you to the Announcements forum.

   

   • Subject. Choose a subject line for the announcement.  This will appear in the Latest News block.
   • Message. Provide the content for the announcement. No knowledge of HTML is actually necessary -- the Atto Editor allows images, links, videos or media from Panopto, and other types of content to be added to the block, in addition to formatted text. Full HTML content capabilities are provided by using the </> button in the Atto Editor.  For more details on the Atto Editor, see MoodleDocs: Text Editor.
   • Other forum fields.  Other forum fields are described in more detail in Moodle: Activities & Resources: Forum Overview.
   • Click Post to Forum to create the announcement posting.  You should see a confirmation that your posting was created:
     
      
4. If you are still in Edit Blocks mode, click  Save changes  at the bottom.
   
    
5. You must click on  Stop Editing  at the top of the Course Tools blocks section before attempting to return to your main course page.
   
    
6. Now you should see the Latest News block in the Course Tools page.  Each announcement title can be clicked to see the full announcement.
   
   It will also appear for students in the class, but they will not have the option to Add a new topic... .