Discussion+Boards+and+Tools

Options for Online Discussions In addition to the discussion boards in Blackboard, there are several other web-based discussion tools that are easy to use. First, there are blogs. To read more about blogs, see the page on blogs. Blogs are free. Another that I like is Voxopop. It is free and very easy to use. You can set up a audio discussion, and hearing the comments can add a lot to the discussion. is free. Check it out at voxopop.com One that I particularly like is VoiceThread. Using VoiceThread, you can set up a discussion around a slide presentation, a document, or a video. Students can comment using their computer microphones, webcams + microphones, text, or even calling in a comment using the telephone. It has lots of possibilities. I urge you to go to the VoiceThread website and look at some of the examples. There is a cost to VoiceThread, but it is pretty reasonable. If a significant number of us want to use it, we can request that the school purchase a department license for us. Check it out at VoiceThread.com. Here's an example of a VoiceThread I made about online vs. face-to-face decisions: (YOU CAN ADD A COMMENT RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!) media type="custom" key="21336192" Here's a 1-minute video on how to create a voicethread. A larger version of the video is available on the voicethread website (along with several others). media type="custom" key="21336220" Or how about a discussion based on a wiki page? This wiki has a "discussion board" with every page. Explore the wiki to see what's been posted.

=Rubrics for Online Discussions=

Here are a couple of different rubrics for grading online discussions that have been used in courses I've taken (in my masters program at UMass-Boston):

Rubric 1:



Rubric 2

==

=Encouraging and grading student participation in online discussion= Here are a couple of links to a two-part article from Duke's Center for Instructional Technology.

@http://cit.duke.edu/blog/2009/03/grading-student-discussions-1/

@http://cit.duke.edu/blog/2009/03/grading-online-discussions-2/