http://commoncraft.com/video/online-discussion-forums
Involvement in discussion boards, allows students to formulate their thoughts about an issue. In a typical classroom, students are asked questions and are expected to provide answers either verbally or on a worksheet within that class period. Some students are shy and don’t want to speak out in class, while others are content to do the minimum. The in class responses, therefore, will be very different than those in a discussion board. When you utilize a discussion board, students are given an agreed upon amount of time to type in a response. This gives the student a great amount of independence and responsibility. They are creating their own thoughts based on the teacher assigned content and are being asked to defend their viewpoints. It encourages individuality, and makes learning more student-centered.
So what is a good site that allows you to create online discussion boards? Many new software tools-including Sharepoint, wikis and blog services- have discussion board components. For today’s tech snack, however, I am going to share one tool that is free and very easy to use. The tool is called collaborize classroom. According to their website, “Collaborize Classroom is a free, online learning platform for teachers and students to create structured discussions in a private online community. Students can expand on discussions as well as interact with online lesson plans that allow for deeper participation inside and outside the classroom
http://www.collaborizeclassroom.com/
The interface of this tool is easy and fairly user friendly. However, due to the various options that you have available with this tool, it is not a tool I would recommend using with K-2 students. I will discuss other tools that would be appropriate for that age group in future blog entries. I have used discussion boards with my Fifth graders and can see this as a wonderful tool to use with Middle and Upper School students. In order for students to use this service, they will either have to registrar with an e-mail address or will have to create a username and then request membership.
If you are going to use collaborize classroom or any other discussion board forum you also need to teach your students proper online communication rules. This is because while our students are comfortable using technology, they have to be directed how to use it. They don’t initially know how to do this.
*Below are some resources that can help you with this:
For grades 3-5:
http://www.brainpop.com/technology/computersandinternet/digitaletiquette/
* For grades 5-8
* http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/hoodmarine-1086694-online-chatting-do-s-and-don-ts/
* For grades 9-12
* http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html
Mmm....this one is a pretty hefty snack. I think I may just have had a meal!