Using Discussions (text)

Nicenet

http://www.nicenet.org

Nicenet can be used for discussion forums to support and improve your students writing skills, through safe, monitored and guided text-based communication tools. This allows students to participate in well structured discussion forums and significantly improve their writing skills.

Pros:

  • Offers a variety of applications to support complete LMS to run virtually any classroom online.
  • Set up discussion forums that you can easily monitor is one example of use.
  • Set up specific discussions and monitor them within the online space that can provide students with timely and meaningful feedback on their contributions.

Cons:

  • Is a challenge to monitor, as discussions can quickly become an overwhelming task for instructors.
  • Begin by running smaller group discussions first that are easier to manage and allow students to learn to communicate via text so they do not feel overwhelmed by having to read many written posts each time.
  • create randomly generated Class Codes that are difficult to retrieve. You must remember them and share them in a systematic way with your students.

How To:

  • Click on image for larger view.

    Go to the homepage of the tool and set up a new account, at Nicenet.org This is a non-for profit website that offers free Learning Management System (LMS) Space for educational purposes.

  • Watch this short introduction video about the tool.

  • Click on image for larger view.

    Once you log in, go to the "Create a Class" link and create a new class. That class could be the landing space for all your discussions within a course. You can set up as many discussion posts as you need, and your students can join them following your specific instructions.

  • Watch this video to learn how to set up a new account on the tool.

  • Click on image for larger view.

    This space will be a safe and easy to monitor environment for all your discussions. Click on the "Create a New Discussion" link and set up all your discussion topics. Remember to do a little planning before you post your discussions.

  • Watch this video to reflect on the idea of using discussion postings (text-based) for activities in your classrooms.

  • Watch this video to get some ideas on activities you can plan and use that require sharing of comments, reflection and feedback, using a discussion post dynamic.

Relevant Literature:

  • Nancy Diekelmann, Robert Schuster, Catherine Nosek. Creating New Pedagogies at the Millennium The Common Experience of University of Wisconsin-Madison Teachers Using Distance Education Technologies September 1998.
  • Zehra Akyol, D. Randy Garrison, M. Yasar Ozden. Development of a Community of Inquiry in Online and Blended Learning Contexts. January 2009. Science Direct World Conference on Educational Sciences 200