Asynchronous Communication

I. Discussion Forums

Why?
Discussion forums are virtual places where students can become more acquainted and comfortable with one another. It allows participants to gradually build relationships. Forums eliminate the anxiety that can be associated with face-to-face communication, and allow users to freely discuss their ideas. Forums provide a place to save information so that participants can view discussion threads at any time.

Discussion forums help students and teachers keep topics organized. The information saved within the discussion can be used for future endeavours while encouraging student expertise and opinion to be shared. (Anderson, 2008)

Educational Experience?
On my splash page, students are expected to provide a brief personal introduction and ice-breaker. Having this information available will help students become more comfortable with the discussion forum. Students are later exposed to group discussions with the “feeling” that they know each other, and are safe to share their own knowledge.

Types of Discussion Forum
a) Instructors can rate their students on what they post and let students rate their colleagues. I will set up a standardized rating system with my discussion forum.
b) Posting to the Class Forum will allow the information to be automatically emailed to other participants. This has been created through my “News Forum” where students will be notified of all announcements.

Limitations?
A moderator must be continually involved with the forum or students will not stay engaged. With middle school students it is important to instil excitement and interest or they will quickly retreat. Simply having the discussion forum will not automatically bring about valuable discourse. If students do not participate it is important for the mediator to send personal encouragement or otherwise grab their attention; for instance, the instructor could start a forum with an intriguing question that encourages responses. The forum becomes more engaging if the instructor summarizes the discussions and provides guidance to keep the flow of conversation (and to avoid inappropriate postings). Finally, in WebCT, users are notified when a posting to a forum has occurred. Moodle lacks this ability. Users have to actively seek out postings and view the responses. This may be challenging for middle school students who quickly lose attention!

II. Wiki

Why?
Wikis are quick and easy websites which may be edited collaboratively through a browser by a community of people. Essentially, a Wiki can be thought of as the combination of a web site and a word document. With built in version control and history tracking, users can see contributions from each participant and changes can be reverted back. Using nothing but a standard web browser, Wikis can be used for group projects, brainstorming, collective exercises, or project management in a classroom. A Wiki becomes the logical choice when the goal is to provide a safe venue for involvement thus motivating all members of the course to participate and contribute. Students, especially at the middle school level, are more likely to be involved if given opportunities to add and reshape content.

In my project plan, students are given three classes to create an outline of their main topic and make notes to compliment that outline. In this venue, classroom and research notes are no longer a solitary activity. By creating a Wiki for each group, students are given the opportunity to post, combine, and enhance their individual notes. Then the group can decide what information is critical, giving it proper emphasis, while discarding anything frivolous.

Educational Experience?
The Wiki will be used as a collaborative tool during the Space unit of Science Nine. The students’ first introduction to a Wiki will occur after a quiz on “Space Misconceptions”. After exploring their own misunderstandings of space, students will have the opportunity to research and reflect on other common myths. The introductory page explains the exercise and examples of links have been created.

Students are given a place to work by creating a Wiki with the group model I have enabled. This will give each group their own space to record research, to develop outlines and to create their final product.

There are a number of applications that need further work:

a) After creating student groups I would like to allow all groups to view each others’ Wiki without being able to edit. This way, members from different groups can view the works in progress; hopefully becoming inspired by others’ exceptional ideas.
b) I would like to create a “submission date” upon which I can turn off students’ editing capabilities so that I can grade the final projects.

Limitations?
Wikis are not particularly good forums for discussions or “chatting”. They serve more as a collection pot rather than a specific communication tool; therefore, it is imperative that synchronous communication tools are used in compliment.