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From a pedagogical perspective, there is a vast range of ways to use your web site's discussion area. This document provides a brief guide to some approaches and to the practical issues of making them work.
Discussion links on every page
Once you select a discussion-based theme and configure the discussion feature at your site, there are three ways for logged-in members to access discussions from any page on your site:
- The Recent Discussion link in the left sidebar goes to the Discussion Group page where all recent discussion topics are listed. Members can click on the links on this page to read the discussion messages and post their own replies. They can also use the Create a new topic link at the bottom of this page to start a new discussion topic.
- The Create New Topic link in the left sidebar takes logged-in members straight to the Create a New Topic page where they can compose and post a new discussion group message.
- The Discuss link at the bottom of every page takes the logged-in member to a page where he/she can compose response text to the page. (For example, a student could click the Discuss link on a page listing assignments to ask a question about assignments.)
Running multiple discussions on your site
Teachers who make extensive use of the discussion feature will want to find a way to organize their discussions, particularly if they have more than one class making use of the discussions on their web sites. There are several ways to do this, and it is possible to combine them.
- Descriptive message titles help students find relevant discussions. For example, imagine a math instructor teaching two classes who wants to organize a weekly discussion topic for each class. Weekly topics for Math 49 might have titles like "Math 49: Week I Discussion" and "Math 49: Week II Discussion" and so on. The messages for Math 10 might be titled "Math 10: Week I Discussion" and so on.
- Link to current topics from your home page so that students don't have to look them up in the discussion page. Using shortcuts to link to the discussions makes this easier. Here is the procedure:
- Go to your Discussion page and click on Create a New Topic to create the initial message in your discussion. Click the Post New Message button when you are finished.
- You will find yourself at the page containing your new message. Click on the Shortcuts link in the Editors Only menu to go to the Shortcuts page.
- The title of your discussion message and its URL will be in the two boxes of the Add a new shortcut: section on the Shortcuts page. Edit the title if necessary and then click the Add New Shortcut button.
- Go to your home page and edit the text to include the newly-created shortcut to your discussion message. For example, This week's assignment is to post your response "Math 49: Week I Discussion" topic. The text in quotes will become a link to the discussion.
- Class discussion list pages can contain links to important discussion threads for each class. Again using a math instructor as an example:
- Create a new story called Math 10 Discussion Topics. Include shortcuts to all Math 10 discussion topics on this page.
- Create another story called Math 49 Discussion Topics and include shortcuts to Math 49 discussion topics.
- Put links to these two stories on the home page, possibly by adding links to the sidebar.
Important considerations
- The discussion area of your site is shared by all site members, so all site-members can see and participate in all discussions. You can turn features on and off globally, but all members normally have access to the same features.
- There are several ways that you can monitor what is posted at your site.
- Read discussion messages on a regular basis.
- Make sure that you receive email notification when messages are posted. See Enabling the Discussion Feature for more information.
- Respond to problematic messages right away. See Managing Membership for information about some ways to respond to problems.
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