hi everybody, I hope your semester has gotten off to a good start!
someone in IT asked me for some notes about discussion boards since they
are working on a comparison of when to use chat and when to use
discussion board. I don't use chat, but I do use the discussion board A
LOT, so I thought I would share these notes with the CASONLINE list also
in case any of this could be helpful to others.
if you have some cool discussion board or chat assignments that you
would like to share, Michelle Davis in IT would be glad to hear from
you! she answers the email at [log in to unmask]
:-)
Laura
________________________________
From: Gibbs, Laura K.
Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 2:04 PM
Subject: RE: Chat vs. discussion
I think these notes cover pretty much how I use the Discussion Board; it
is hugely important to me. you can log on to any of my courses as
"visitor" (password visitor) and see the Discussion Board in action.
student-teacher question-and-answer where the students ask me for help
with areas of the course and by helping them via the Discussion Board,
other students can also benefit from seeing these exchanges
student-student open discussion: sometimes students will connect with
each other about majors, hobbies or other interests, big events in their
lives, etc. and they can use the discussion board to carry on those
discussions amongst themselves - I usually don't participate in these
discussions
weekly class discussion: each week I have the students do "starting
assumptions" where they explore their current awareness of the week's
topic, and they also reply to each other. here's a sample discussion
assignment:
http://www.mythfolklore.net/3043mythfolklore/weeks/week02/starting.htm
weekly writing assignments: students do two more formal writing
assignments each week which they post to the Discussion Board and then
they comment on each other's assignments. here's a sample writing
assignment:
http://www.mythfolklore.net/3043mythfolklore/reading/gilgamesh/discussio
n.htm
weekly "last words": since in my experience, students do not even read
the replies that have been left for them unless they get credit for
doing that, I have an extra credit "famous last words" assignment which
is very popular; almost every student chooses to do this assignment.
they read the discussion thread that they started and provide closing
comments.
http://www.mythfolklore.net/3043mythfolklore/assignments/lastwords.htm
project brainstorming: at the beginning of the semester, I have the
students review student projects from past semesters and brainstorm
about the project they will choose this semester. here's a sample
brainstorming assignment:
http://www.mythfolklore.net/3043mythfolklore/weeks/week04/storybook.htm
project peer review comments area: each student has a semester-long
project which consists of a website. each week, students read and
respond to each other's projects, and every student has a Discussion
Board topic area with their name on it,which is where comments for that
student are left all semester long. this is handy, because the student
has ALL the comments from the whole semester available to them in their
topic folder in the Discussion Board. here are the instructions for the
peer comments assignment:
http://www.mythfolklore.net/3043mythfolklore/weeks/week06/internet.htm
orientation: because the Discussion Board is so hugely important to me,
I have an assignment during the first week where they are given credit
for learning how to use D2L to include images and links in their posts
(and throughout the semester, because it is such a pain to include
images, I give them extra credit for making the effort to do so):
http://www.mythfolklore.net/3043mythfolklore/orientation/intros.htm
grading: the students record their completion of the Discussion Board
assignments by "Gradebook Declaration". here is how I explain that
process to them:
http://www.bestmoodle.net/ks/cp/declarations.htm
I want to continually promote good Discussion Board habits, so these D2L
Discussion Board tips pop up at random in a widget I add to the courses
explicitly for this purpose:
http://www.bestmoodle.net/ks/js/index_d2l.htm
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