[Cartertonian]

I think there is a large consensus on PoFo that part of why we are all here is to learn more (about politics, in PoFo's case). The utility of the online community as a virtual classroom occurred to me quite some time ago, but now I have put it into practice in my university using the same phpBB software as powers PoFo. I have an admin section and an off-topic section, but the main focus is that each element of my module's curriculum has it's own sub-forum. My students will access learning materials through our Uni VLE and then enter into the discussion that follows from the resource.

To me, the benefit of being able to do this in an asynchronous way offers students more scope for reflection and considered response, whilst also offering them an enduring record of the discussion and the learning points therein.

Amongst fellow academics and students who frequent PoFo, what is your view of this approach?

[Heisenberg]

I think it's an excellent idea. Have you thought about including an "extract posts" feature, whereby students could download discussions for offline use? Copying and pasting might be a bit cumbersome, particularly in long threads.

[Cartertonian]

It might be worth looking at ways to export - or import - data to enhance the utility of the board. Thanks, Heisenberg.

[Siberian Fox]

Also, to anyone here who has studied on a distance learning course, what resources were used? Did teachers posts videos for watching on demand, use live chats etc?

[The Immortal Goon]

We use a system called Angel on my campus. It's okay, and is a too way to distribut assignments and reading. I find the discussion stuff problematic, in my experience. When students are Wagner to discuss, or to comment, I ten to find that they all eventually just mail it in and do whatver they need to do get credit.

So Cart, how do you keep the students engaged? Do you required a certain amout of posts? Is it require or optional? Do you find anything really takes off, or do the students mostly go through the motions?

[Eauz]

Online classrooms still require some improvements for them to work. I'm in the process of finishing up an online program and even when it was required to post questions/answers, it was not effectively managed by the teacher. For example, the teacher said that he would not answer any questions directly from the message board and if there were any questions/concerns, they should be directed at the teacher via email, not message board. This pretty much killed all discussion on the forum. This also caused the teacher to have to answer the same question over and over again. There was also another time when the teacher got so backlogged on answering questions that some questions got missed. This lead to the teacher relying upon students to answer questions, but most students couldn't really answer the questions and generally just made statements like "I think this is right...". However, I don't want to place all of the blame on the teachers, as it seems that with a lot of online courses (at least in North America), the teachers were previous students or are being asked to teach this course on the side, while they also attend full-time work and care for the family. This has lowered the quality of teachers in general and as a result has also lowered the quality of education. The program I was suggested to take is actually a joke and I have not learnt anything, despite receiving top marks on most assignments/exams. I joke with my co-worker that in the end, this course is not about learning and being educated, but about getting another letter behind one's name.

[Goldberk]

To me, the benefit of being able to do this in an asynchronous way offers students more scope for reflection and considered response, whilst also offering them an enduring record of the discussion and the learning points therein.

I understand your argument, but when students are physically present at a university would it not be better to encourage them to engage face to face with each other, discussion seminars, optional workshops etc.

[Quercus Robur]

The idea of students getting together online to discuss their education is great, and it's obviously very cheap/easy to do, so I tend to think that what you're doing is what all education institutions should do.

Having said that my experience with all these things, as a student and a tutor, is that they're massively under used (still worth the minimal cost of putting them in place though). The main problems were that the online forum was seen as extraneous/unnecessary. I think this may be an intractable problem in an exam-oriented system where most people learn so that they can pass the next exam and therefore cram at the last second the old 'education for job vs education for education' argument. Discussion boards provide mainly secondary benefits to the student, at least from the student's point of view, when they do not contain information that the student is examined on.

I think that your approach strikes a nice balance between instructing the students to use the discussion board (which basically just extends the classroom electronically and removes the feeling of freedom) and ignoring the discussion the board entirely (which leads to under-use). Another strategy I came across, which worked pretty well, was a tutor who said in lectures/hand-outs that he'd reply to common questions over the revision period on the forum (within reason) He also said that he'd provide updates on the forum and made it clear that students wanting high grades were expected to keep themselves up to date.

[Typhoon]

We are just in the process of shaking up our internal network where I work and although we have very few students, the inclusion of a forum would be a very good idea beyond the resource repository its being built as.

The problem I think is getting the critical mass of people to use it for it to be worth while, this would be a problem for us.

[Yellowscientist]

I understand your argument, but when students are physically present at a university would it not be better to encourage them to engage face to face with each other, discussion seminars, optional workshops etc.

I agree with Goldberk.

Although a complete reverse on what Cart asks for, Khan academy seems like a reasonable way to rethink ways for education.
Basically watching videos before class to absorb the needed materials and then engaging with each other during class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTFEUsudhfs
I don't know how to embed video so I'll just provide the URL.

[Cartertonian]

Thanks for the replies, folks. I would have responded much earlier but there's still no internet worthy of the name in the new Chez Cartertonian, so I'm restricted to posting from work. However, this is work - as far as I am concerned - so I'm not feeling guilty!

So Cart, how do you keep the students engaged? Do you required a certain amout of posts? Is it require or optional? Do you find anything really takes off, or do the students mostly go through the motions?

I understand your argument, but when students are physically present at a university would it not be better to encourage them to engage face to face with each other, discussion seminars, optional workshops etc.

Basically watching videos before class to absorb the needed materials and then engaging with each other during class.

I should have explained at the start that this new MSc I'm running is part-time and (almost entirely) distance learning. We have a 2-day, F2F into (tomorrow and Wednesday) but only about half the students can actually make it anyway. The thrust of delivery, therefore, is all going to be around the discussion board rather than live Skype/VTC software that requires all the students to be available at the same time. Much as Yellowscientist intimates, there will be video-lectures and podcasts to watch each week, with supportive content on our VLE (powerpoints, aides memoire, other media) that the students will be able to access and then, on the basis of having dome so, they will then engage in the virtual classroom discussion via the discussion board. I am going to split them up into groups (Action Learning Sets), so I may contemplate setting up 'Groups' on the board to allow them to restrict certain areas to their own group, but for the most part I'm aiming at transparency.

I hope, therefore, to keep the students engaged by actively promoting to them the idea that they are joining an online community and that the more they actively participate in that community the greater their likely success on the course.

[Odiseizam]

The problem I think is getting the critical mass of people to use it for it to be worth while, this would be a problem for us.

it would be clever if not needed on such academic eForum if there is double parallel one , with the same threads but open for guest participation, useful maybe as more loosen place for conversation on the same topic!?

so critical mass, in this way for sure at least senior student again could be engaged in some topic some from curiosity some for need of refreshing knowledge, and other as explorers on subjects that eventually werent to them attractive back in the student days but later proved to be worthy for debate at least ...

I had have something similar in mind for open-source party eForum where except member could participate any citizen in shaping on the proposed agenda or thread of interest ... but thinks didnt went as expected so that idea didnt became official!

https://www.elkarte.net/community/index.php?topic=4823.msg35124#msg35124

also You can introduce upvote/downvote option on that side threads so the participants would moderate the discussion by themselves no waiting on the moderator to hide some intrusive post or grumpy discussion, usually when there is so alternative revisionistic view on the mainstream theories ...

https://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1890