Application
Tools and Links
for Further Reading
Forums have been in use for a number of years and pre-date the public Internet. Forums were used originally on one of the most popular areas of the pre-browser Internet, the usenet. At its peak, there were over 30,000 topically based usenet groups. One could monitor any group and contribute through threaded discussions.
Forums were also available from the earliest days of modem connectivity through online groups like CompuServe and individual bulletin boards, or BBSs. These early BBS sites were run by individuals who would distribute the access phone number. Consequently, instead of having urls, you need phone numbers for all of your favorite BBS sites.
The forum has evolved with the Internet. It is easy to set up a forum site using open-source software or placing a forum on a free hosting server. Forums are characterized by the following:
Threaded discussions
Topical orientation
Peer-to-peer content sharing
Threaded Discussions
A threaded discussion is one in which the replies are connected chronologically and topically to the original post. This allows you to follow the thread of discussion from the original question through the various answers. Sometimes, answers have threads of their own (sub-threads) that can begin and go in a different direction than the main thread. The threaded nature of the discussion makes it easy to follow and easy for individuals to jump into the thread and contribute.
Topical Orientation
Forums generally revolve around a particular topic. In a course, you can have a course forum. Students can post on that forum any question relating to the subject matter of the course (or any other parameters that are set for the forum). When a question is asked, that becomes a discussion on the forum. Answers to the question in that discussion are then linked to the question, thus providing the threading. If a reply to a reply is posted, that begins a new sub-thread, and so forth.
Peer-to-peer Content Sharing
One of the main advantages of the forum is that its emphasis is on peer-to-peer knowledge sharing. In a course forum, students answer each other's questions. Of course, the instructor can also participate, but if the instructor participates too frequently, students will wait for the instructor's answers to questions rather than posting their own. The idea is to develop and strengthen network connections between students, so too much instructor participation can actually be counterproductive.
That said, the forum is a good place for the instructor to post frequently asked questions, or answer questions that are general in nature. The forum can save the instructor a lot of time and effort answering individual emails when one question with its answer could be posted on the forum. Sometimes a good strategy for the instructor is to have a discussion based on the topic of teacher questions, where the instructor is the main respondent. Other topical questions can be directed to discussions in which the instructor does not participate.
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Introduction
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for Further Reading
Most students are familiar with the forum genre and know how to contribute, making the forum an excellent collaborative tool for a course. The forum will be most useful if the course material is technical, where specific questions have to be answered in order for students to progress. I find, for example, that the forum is much more useful in a programming course than in a management course since there are more places in programming where a student truly gets stuck and needs immediate help in order to proceed.
I use an excellent open-source package called Vanilla for my class forums. Vanilla is written in php and requires MySQL (same requirements as WordPress). It will run on virtually any server that can run php and MySQL, which includes any web server running Apache or IIS.
Site Forum (This is a forum for this website ... feel free to use it to ask questions)