We need more information. How many learners are going to be participating? How many times do you want them to contribute? What time frame? How do you perceive "text" in this discussion? I would try looking at Voice Thread first.

Thanks, Beth.

I am familiar with the use of VoiceThread, though I do not think it can be integrated into most LMSs. What could we change within the structure of the LMS as an alternative, or a third party technology (like VoiceThread) that can be embedded/integrated within the LMS?

Meanwhile, how do you envision number of learners and number of required contributions as impacting the viable alternatives?

With thanks for your reply,

Barb

Thanks for the clarification. My understanding now is that you want this new tool to fit within an LMS. My proposal, get rid of your LMS. We are on the verge of being able to manage electronic classrooms without expensive software. If we are going to envision new tools, let's toss the LMS, find something better. I intereviewed a few dozen scholars about how they were using social media in their classrooms last fall for a research project and I heard numerous complaints about the clunkiness of BB and other CMS/LMS systems. Why are we still using them?

Could we not envision something open source that conglomerates other tools and makes grading different projects made with different media easier. Unless you are a stock holder in BB or eCollege, let's think of something better that can allow us to creatively combine the amazing OER at our disposal. We can spend our energy contributing to each others' courses, rather than struggling with out of date tools.

So, there would be no central place that we could call a course home? Whatever it looks like, I am still in favor of a "home" where the student can find a list of requirements, instructions, support, and feedback/grades. I attended a presentation and read a paper about using Facebook as an LMS, though I am not sure this is the best tool for a course home. What is your thinking about the need for a course home?

Can you use synchronous tools? Can you give the learners choices on available live sessions? I think this is your best alternative, and if students can't accommodate the live sessions, they can complete an alternative assignment,

I believe there are a bunch of tools developed within the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) community. For an example, check out Knowledge Forum developed at the University of Toronto.

Hi, Laura, and thank you for responding. I am thinking specifically of asynchronous discussions.

Thank you for offering the suggestion, Bodong. I visited the page (based on a Google search) to learn more about Knowledge Forum. Part of the description stated, "Users start with an empty Knowledge Base..."

Thinking along the same lines of my comment above to Beth, how do you think Knowledge Forum could serve as a "course home" if there is no content (e.g., course requirements) when the students begin?

With thanks to all for continuing the conversation,

Barb

I do still think there needs to be a course home, however, it needs to be much more flexible in blending a variety of media. All the LMS systems I have used are clunky and do not easily bring in media such as graphics or video into the discussion. Nor do they allow for any synchronous discussion. Even something as simple as Google Docs allows people to interact in real time and work on the same assignment. I think more synchronicity does build community. Students can set up their own times to meet.

The issue of asynchronous discussions is very important for all forms of education today, from the ICT-supported classroom to current MOOC, I would like to share an interesting article on this line, how these interactions contribute to the construction of collective knowledge:

Message Interactions in Online Asynchronous Discussions: The Problem of Being “Too Nice” by Geoffrey Roulet

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/864/1549

I include links to google doc that is usually a summary of the textbook chapter from within ANGEL CMS as my normal practice. Students in various group sizes decided by me collaborate on the doc adding comments and answering inserted questions (tagged with their initials) and when done, I can mark it within google docs using voice note audio comments. Technically google docs is not "in" ANGEL but it is pretty seamless for students to jump there from ANGEL and for me to mark. The catch is that to meet FERPA, it is necessary to restrict docs access to just my students, and so everyone needs a gmail login to make it work.

Thank you for sharing your approach, Hansjörg.

I too prefer the idea of an environment that can provide a 'course home', in particular for off-campus/distance students. And most CMSs/LMSs are designed to provide structured access to all the elements that comprise the online learning experience in a formal education setting. But I dont agree that using a LMS restricts you to threaded asynchronous discussion tool for interaction among participants. The institution I worked with invested in Blackboard Collaborate that was used as a plug in to Moodle for synchronous discussions, and it could also accommodate powerpoint slides for group presentations. In terms of video clips, we simply inserted a UTube link on the course site, whether the production was done in-house or came from an external source. Once the link was appropriately positioned in the LMS, I don't think there were any major problems for students to access it to support any type of activity. And there is the blog, which is part of most LMSs, but may also be accessed as a plug in.

Is your focus on asynchronous thread innovation because of the difficulty associated with regularly synchronizing online cohorts that involve 6 or more time zones and/or working adult learners?

Hi, Vicki.

I certainly think the issues you mentioned are two of the most common reasons students choose asynchronous learning. My question was specific to asynchronous discussions because my passion is about peer participation in asynchronous conversations. I am not interested at this time in doing the innovating; right now, I am interested in knowing about what else is already out there.

With thanks for responding,

Barb

Thank you for the detailed follow up.

Like you, I have also been both a student and a facilitator in asynchronous courses. Do you think the distinction between discussions via wiki or blog and discussions within the LMS (meaning the discussion board separate from wiki or blog capacities in some LMSs) is simply the structure - that perhaps having only one thread in a blog or wiki is better than having multiple threads in an LMS discussion board?

With thanks,

Barb

Have you considered something like Voicethread? Michelle Pacansky-Brock's YouTube collection will help explain it better than i can (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stcpVSqhEJQ&list=PL5C0886494E5A0F21) but it can be used to shake up the traditional forum structure. You can also connect it to LMSs.

Thanks, Timna.

I recognize the value of VoiceThread, though I am not the staunch advocate of the technology as others might be. I should investigate more why that is!

With thanks for the contributions,

Barb

here is a link to a masters thesis on using google docs for asynchronous discussion:

http://www.personal.psu.edu/rbc4/JL_2014.pdf

Edomodo Platform

It's hard to believe that I asked this question five years ago! I appreciate the many contributions.

With Mohamed Abdallah Turky's recent response, I wanted to "bump" this question to see if perspectives have changed in the last five years.

What is available now that might not have been available five years ago?

Thank you for your thoughts,

Barb

Hi Barb!

I recently built a threaded discussion board using Google spreadsheets with App scripts. Visit bit.ly/forumtoolbox for a video demo.

The empty columns to the right of the discussion forum can be used by students to individually or collaboratively post/create diagrams, photos, images, to elaborate on ideas presented in a posting using the Google spreadsheet's Draw Diagram tool. I have my students collaborative construct argument diagrams to analyze the hierarchical relationships between major premises and minor premises presented in the threaded discussion/debate in relation to the claim under debate.

You can customize the prompts to display specific response options to users as they are posting replies. The reply window also shows the text of the parent message and all direct responses to that message (in order to minimize redundant postings).

Users can also subscribe to individual posts, specific threads, or to the entire forum to receive email notifications.

Instructors can select a cell containing a student's message and insert pop-up or bubble comments into the cell to provide teacher feedback. Or, the instructor can place and position a chat bubble (using Draw Diagram tool) next to a message to provide individual feedback. The chat bubbles will move with the message as new messages are posted and inserted into the spreadsheet.

The instructor can use spreadsheet formulas to create customized learning analytics (e.g., number of posts that use the words "therefore", "because", "as a result" to gauge how often students are engaged in explaining ideas, or "but" "however" "disagree" to gauge how often students are challenging and testing their ideas.

Expand and collapse discussion forum at any specified thread level as well as display the postings in fulltext or first line only.

Download and archive all discussions (one discussion per worksheet) into one Excel file.

--Allan

The answer to the question really depends on the nature of the discussion/task. Multi-threaded discussions is perfectly suited for listing and mapping out a broad range of major premises in support and in opposition to a given proposition, and for mapping out all minor premises underlying each major premise (see example below). "Flat" discussion boards without nested replies are best for simple Q&A dialogue. See discussions at https://www.quora.com/Which-view-is-better-for-online-discussions-forums-threaded-or-flat/answer/Allan-Jeong

SUPPORTING ARGUMENTS

...+ARG1 xxxxxxx

......+EVID xxxxxxxxx

.........-BUT not relevant because..

......+EXPL Arg 1 supports claim because...

...+ARG2

...+ARG3

...+ARG4

OPPOSING ARGUMENTS

...-ARG1 xxxxx

...-ARG2 xxxxxx

......+BUT This argument is already posted in ARG1, so it is redundant.

...-ARG3 xxxxxxx

......+BUT This is a minor premise that validates ARG4 & should be re-posted as an EXPL under ARG4

...-ARG4 xxxxxxxx

FSU recently switched from Blackboard to Canvas and I find the Canvas discussion forum threads difficult scan and read given the over-use of white space placed between each individual post. So I’ve resorted to using a simple shared Google document to host threaded discussions and it has been efficient and working very smoothly!

See my example at http://bit.ly/threadeddiscussionswithgoogledocs

How to use Google docs to host online group discussions in exactly 100 words!

1) Create new Google document

2)File/share/advanced/change/anyoneWithLinkCanEdit

3) File/Publish

4) File/PageSetup/Landscape

5) Insert questions in larger size font and in bold type

6) Insert/HorizontalLines to visually separate questions

7) Insert blank lines below each question with smaller font size

8) Place cursor at beginning of each question and Insert/Bookmark

9) Click bookmark/links to get and post direct URLs to each question

10) Instruct your students to:

a) log into Google account & Zoom-in document at 150%

b) click link “Last edit...” to view new posts since last visit

c) indent and left-align replies by typing CTRL+ ]

d) start reply with name enclosed in parentheses

MAIN ADVANTAGES:

- Scan & read responses more efficiently (within and across multiple threads/topics) using this compact format.

- Insert right-margin comments on select portions of text within a posting for meta-discussion & instructor feedback

- Copy/paste drag/drop images into the Google doc, which can’t be done in Canvas discussion forums.

- Familiar and functional text formatting tools

- Download entire discussion into MS Word or pdf document for future reference

MAIN DISADVANTAGES:

- Accidental deletions of other students postings is possible

- Posting threaded replies require users to manually type Enter to insert a new line and type CTRL+] manually indent and left justify wrapping text in replies.

- Can't include attachments with postings

- Does not display unread messages, although you can click File/version history or the link “Last edit...” to read the latest posts.

- Users can't subscribe & receive email alerts to new postings.

Allan, in Google Drive > Settings > Notifications > Email, tick. Then open the specific Google Document and choose Notifications > All. The users who have editing rights in the document should be able to get alerts the same way. (Illustrated on https://applieddigitalskills.withgoogle.com/c/college-and-continuing-education/en/give-and-receive-feedback/give-and-receive-feedback/extensions/turn-on-notifications-for-document-changes.html )

With all due respect to others who have posted, we should not jump to talking about tools before we have determined what we want to accomplish with our discussions. This is called Requirements-Based Planning, in which we determine what we want to accomplish, and then select the learning techniques and tools that will achieve the outcome (see the book chapter linked below for much more detail about this technique).

My sense of the question is that you are asking what online course learning activities could serve as a replacement for asynchronous threaded discussions. In other words, it sounds like you want to substitute some other kind of online learning activity.

So my question is "what do you want to accomplish with your discussions?"

In my online courses, my goal in using discussions/forums is to promote critical thinking. For this outcome goal, threaded asynchronous discussions work well, because students have time to think through their answers and make thoughtful posts. I give them guidelines about when their initial posts and replies must be made, but I also give them choices about which threads to pursue.

Maybe you have a different outcome goal for discussions and, for example, required live synchronous chat might be a better choice.

Remember, it is backward to select a tool and then try to figure out how to use it. FIRST determine your outcome goals/requirements/expectations, and then structure your learning activities (including discussions) to allow students to achieve those outcomes.

Chapter Creating a technology-rich English language learning environment

I suggest the value of VoiceThread, ZOOM, BigBlueButton, Video Capture.

Good Contribution Russell Waldron.

Thanks Barbara Miller Hall.