MANAGING EFFECTIVE ONLINE DISCUSSIONS

Roman Forum; CC Licensed by Marcel Germain

MANAGING EFFECTIVE ONLINE DISCUSSIONS

Online discussions these days can take place in a number of different spaces:

• discussion forums
• blogs
• wikis
• email

This wiki will be looking primarily at managing discussions in forums.

Before we look at the question of how to manage online discussions we need to ask another question: WHY ARE ONLINE DISCUSSIONS IMPORTANT? WHY WOULD YOU INCLUDE THEM AS PART OF YOUR COURSE OR GROUP ACTIVITY?

Some suggestions:

• to test/assess knowledge
• to share opinions
• build community
• have participants get to know each other (social)
• icebreaker activities
• get participants familiar with the tool
• check understanding of key concepts
• encourage processing content and reflection

HOW TO PROMOTE EFFECTIVE DISCUSSIONS

Most important:

• explain why you're doing it
• establish expectations
  • how long should posts be?
  • how often do you (teachers and participants) respond to posts?
  • who summarises, and how often do you summarise discussions?
• respond promptly

In addition:

• model the process
  • don't be pompous or too serious - be natural/conversational
  • ask open questions of everyone
• encourage participants to answer questions posed by other participants
• encourage participants to start new discussion topics
• monitor whether someone is not getting any responses (and respond)
• don't answer all the questions/dominate the discussion. (a ratio of 1:5 or 1:8 is about right)
• use the backchannel ie email acknowledging good posts that you want other participants to respond to

NOW IT'S YOUR TURN:

This is a public wiki - please add your thoughts.

URL of this wiki: http://effective-online-discussions.wikispaces.com/