Online Discussion Boards

Threaded discussion forums--sometimes called bulletin boards, online forums, message boards, or discussion groups—are online spaces where you can post messages and receive responses to your posts. While some discussion or message board software allows users to insert images, video clips, and other media into their posts, the defining feature of a discussion board is that it “threads” the responses or replies to an original post, as well as responses to any responses. This allows users to visually “see” the relationships among the various posts and responses and engage in an ongoing dialogue or conversation over extended periods of time. Some discussion forum software is proprietary, such as vBulletin or InvisionBoard. However, many free and some open-source options are also available, such as phpBB, MyBB, and Simple Machines Forum. Moreover, many learning and course management systems (LMS’s and CMS’s), such as Edmodo and Blackboard, include threaded discussion boards among their many other features.

Discussion boards are multi-user or multi-voice; they allow multiple participants to contribute to a conversation. This differs from weblogs or e-journal features in LMS platforms, which are essentially a single-user or primary author platform. While other people can read and post comments on the author’s posts on a blog, they’re not designed to host and promote a dialogue among multiple, equal participants. The author or owner is the primary voice in a weblog or ejournal. It’s important to keep this affordance in mind when using discussion boards for educational purposes. When I want learners to debate the different sides of a controversial issue, wrestle with challenging questions, or build shared understanding of specific concept, a threaded discussion is the better tool. Student ejournals or blogs are better suited for sharing their individual perspectives, interpretations, and conceptions.

Another key affordance of online discussion forums is that they are asynchronous. This distinguishes them from chat or instant messengers, in which participants have to be present in the chatroom or instant messenger synchronously (at the same time). It also provides learning affordances distinct from in-class discussions, in which only one participant can speak at any given time. Moreover, in face-to-face discussions, time constraints often don’t allow every member of the class the opportunity to speak. Those that do get the opportunity to speak tend to do so spontaneously, when they get the chance. However, it’s safe to say that in any given face-to-face, whole class discussion/debate, most students spend most of their time listening. In contrast, in an online, asynchronous discussion, everyone gets a chance to “speak,” and everyone has a chance to collect their thoughts or think through ideas and concepts more fully before “speaking” or posting. As a result, the dialogue often is richer or deeper than the “off the cuff” comments you often get in a face-to-face discussion. Additionally, participants get to “hear” from everyone in the class, not just those who are the most assertive or gregarious.

I could make good use of an online discussion forum for teaching writing (the subject that I taught for many years). To help students construct an understanding of the concept of unity in writing (i.e. that a good piece of writing has a clear, central message that all of the details and supporting ideas help to clarify or explain), I could have students find and post an example and non-example of unity in writing, explaining/analyzing what makes the example unified and the non-example un-unified. Having read through the multiple examples and non-examples (and having commented on couple of them) before meeting in class, our in class discussion could focus on selecting the top 5 examples and more deeply analyzing what features or characteristics make them particulary effective. In this scenario, the online discussion forum (the technology) supports the social construction of knowledge (the pedagogy) which aligns well with building conceptual understanding (the content, in this case, is a concept).

A bit more on how this technology supports student-centered construction of knowledge…

If I had to rely only on the face-to-face time I have in class (which is limited), I could take a couple of different approaches. I could present 2-3 of my own examples and 2-3 non-examples. However, students would only get those few examples, and I’d have no way to tell whether they understand the concept of unity until they write their first essay. This is a very teacher-centered approach, which doesn’t align well with the content (developing understanding of the concept of unity). Another approach would be to have students find an example and non-example and bring them to class. I could put students in small groups and have them share their examples and non-examples with each other. They’d still only see the examples provided in their groups; however, because I could have them turn in their examples, at least I’d have a better way of seeing who “gets it” and who doesn’t than I’d have if I presented my own examples to them. 

In contrast, the online discussion forum is not only a less messy way of collecting these examples and non-examples, it provides a way for students to see more of them. Does it guarantee that they’ll look at all of them? Nope. But it certainly enables that possibility! Relying solely on my own presentation or those offered in small groups in class constrains the number of examples to only a few. Online, I can require them to post comments on 4 or 5 examples to ensure that they examine at least that many. But I haven’t restricted them to only a few examples. The rest are all there to view and discuss if they wish. Plus, they get feedback from others in the class, and I can provide comments, too. Thus, this is a use of technology to better support the pedagogy than would be possible without it.

Affordances of Video

I hear lots of kudos for YouTube and how engaging it is to use videos for instruction, but blanket statements applauding YouTube as “great!” or “engaging!” leave out a lot. It’s a bit like saying, “books are great!” And no one will dispute that. But neither do most believe that all books are great. We all pretty much accept that there are good books and bad books—or at least appropriate books and inappropriate ones. But books as a technology for disseminating information require the following action to acquire their contents: reading. And we can all pretty much agree that reading is a very, very good thing—even if we rarely describe reading as “engaging!” Video, on the other hand, requires watching, a much more passive action than reading, which does require some effort. Thus, in terms of affordances for action, text beats video. But video does win for some instructional purposes. I’ll share a couple.

Because video shows motion, it beats text and even pictures in demonstrating a process or procedure, a.k.a. the “how-to” video. Have you ever gotten tangled up in a set of written instructions even when there were pictures accompanying the text? We all have. A video demonstrating how to do something—let’s say, cut up a chicken for frying—usually can make a procedure easier to follow and understand. In a classroom, a teacher can do this live, demonstrating the process and explaining the steps while students observe. But capturing a demonstration on video provides some additional affordances for learners/viewers. They can pause, rewind, and fast forward—reviewing what they need to look at again, pausing to take notes or perform a step, or skipping ahead to parts that they need more than others.

Beyond a “how-to” or set of steps, video wins at showing motion of any sort: a dance move, a golf swing, the beating wings of a bird in flight. One can even slow down motion—a speeding bullet, for example—so the viewer can actually see things that move too fast for the human eye. See this example: 

Video can also speed motion up, so the viewer can see small changes that occur over prolonged periods of time: a seedling sprouting and growing, a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly, the rise and ebb of ocean tides.

Now, if you need a learner to observe something closely—say an object or a scene, for example—a still picture or a real object is better than video, which really is all about motion. However, video can be better for capturing an environment. Using the ocean floor as an example, still photos of the ocean floor would provide a better “picture” than a text description, but a video “tour” including some of the fishes darting in and out of the underwater plants while they sway in the currents might give a better “feel” for what that complex environment is like than still photos. From video, a viewer can see some of the interactions between agents in the environment (the plants and the fishes), but that doesn't mean that video IS interactive; it's not. Nevertheless, video does let you provide tours of places you can’t take a classful of learners: the Louvre, the Grand Canyon, even the moon! As such, it can provide experiences that learners couldn’t otherwise get.

When designing instruction using video, it’s important to keep these affordances of video in mind. Video hosting sites, such as Vimeo, YouTube, and even TeacherTube, host a variety of videos—some educational, some not. In terms of the TPACK model, it’s not the hosting site alone that matters when analyzing the “T” or technology (as in "YouTube is engaging!"). One has to look at the purpose or value a specific video provides. The value isn’t that watching a video is “more engaging for learners.” Watching a video is a passive activity. But it’s well worth it if allows learners to see something they couldn’t otherwise see. However, it should not take the place of doing things that we can have them do, and it should be combined with activities that allow us to determine whether they “got” what we wanted them to “get” from watching.