Online Discussion Forums

This is my second year experimenting with Moodle in my classroom, and I am constantly discovering more and more things that it can do.  Even so, I know that I have only scratched the surface.  My latest Moodle endeavour has been setting up and running online discussion forums as part of my literature circles.  Each week students are responsible for reading the assigned chapters of their novel, completing two paper reading responses of their choice, participating in a face-to-face discusison group, and joining in an online discussion group.  I have worked with my class on structures, expectations, and social responsibility in an online forum, and they have class time to compose their posts and responses.  Students with internet access are also able to post from home, and I have posted a link to the Moodle site on my class website.

I set the discussion forums up with help from our district tech helping teacher (to whom I will be greatly indebted by the end of this course), and we worked together to iron out the few wrinkles that have come up so far.  This is the third week of online discussions, and, knock on wood, things are going smoothly.

The first week, students were really excited to chat with their group members online.  Most posts had little to do with the novels, and consisted mostly of lol's and emoticons.  But after some reflection, goal-setting, and added structure, the second week was much more productive.  Students knew how to log in, post, and reply, and they knew that they were accountable for their posts, both in terms of social responsibility and Language Arts marks.  Discussions were much more focused and purposeful the second week, and I am excited to see how the third week goes.  I have attached a sample discussion thread from week two of the The Daring Game (by Kit Pearson) discussion.  Names are blotted out for privacy reasons.  Please ignore the spelling and punctuation.  That is an issue for another day...

I think that the online component of these lit circles adds another opportunity for students to express and develop their learning.  It is a motivating format, and allows students who are more introverted or slower processors to shine, when they might not be able to in a face-to-face discussion.  Students can take the time to think, and to carefully formulate their responses, as they are not required to respond to a post instantly.  I believe that my lit circles are richer and more widely differentiated for learning style now that they include this online discussion component.  Students are assessed on three different ways of demonstrating their understanding of a novel, and they are learning skills that will help them to be comfortable taking the online courses that are very likely in their futures.

I am posting this at school, and I don't have my text books, so I will add a post connecting this to the readings on another day.  In the meantime, I am looking forward to seeing how the online discussion forums mature throughout this session of lit circles!