Use the Discussions tool for student journals in myCourses

You can use the Groups tool to set up a restricted discussion topic for each student, allowing only yourself and the student to view and post to that topic. First, you will need to create a group category using the Single user, member specific groups enrolment type and then set up discussion topics for each group. In effect, each restricted topic becomes a student's journal.

1. Click Course Admin on your course Navigation Bar.

2. Click Groups under the Learner Management heading.

3. Click New Category.

4. Enter a Category Name (e.g., Student Journals). 

5. Under Enrolment Type, select Single user, member specific groups.
   

6. Under Additional Options, select Set up discussion areas.

   1. Select the forum in which you want the journals to appear, or click New Forum to create a new forum. 

   2. Select Create a new topic or Attach to existing topic.

7. Click Save. This will take you to the page to Create Restricted Topics. 

8. Choose to Create one topic per group (the number of discussion topics created will equal the number of students in your course).

9. Click Create and Next, and then Done.