Anchored forum

Draft

Definition

A anchored forum (or computer-mediated anchored discussion) places discussions "near" the topic being discussed, e.g. with an annotated system that allows teachers and learners to add comments with a text.

See also: Anchored instruction

The rationale for anchored forums

Low interaction levels between learners in forums might result from discussion tools and more particularly from their lack of connection with learning activities and learning contents: "the problem with content-related communication often is, that it does not occur because it is a separate activity that is not include in the course" (Gommer & Visser, 2001, p. 438). We postulate that the separation between learning activities and communication is not favorable for the emergence of discussions. [...] Situated action theory suggests that instructional communication should occur during an action or activity at the time when the user needs it. So if a user cannot communicate easily during an action or activity, the opportunity to communicate and share and exchange ideas will be lost.

George and Labas, (2007:2)

Examples

• CaMILE (Guzdial and Turns, 2000)
• CONFOR (George, 2004; George and Labas, 2007)
• Mediawikis. Each article has a discussion page, in this wiki see e.g. STIC III/ex1 and discussion (in french).

References

• Gommer, L., & Visser, G. (2001). Implementation of a digital learning environment: The real results. In Proceedings of the world conference on the WWW and internet WebNet 2001 (pp. 433-438). Orlando, Florida, USA: AACE.

• Guzdial, Mark and Jennifer Turns (2000). Effective Discussion Through a Computer-Mediated Anchored Forum, Journal of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 9, No. 4, Pages 437-469. Abstract PDF (Access restricted) or PDF

• George Sebastien, Contextualizing discussions in distance learning systems, 4th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT 2004), Joensuu, Finland, August 30-September 1, 2004, p. 226-230, http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/ICALT.2004.1357408

• van der Pol J. , W. Admiraal and P. R. J. Simons (2006), The affordance of anchored discussion for the collaborative processing of academic texts, International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 1 (3), 339-357. DOI 10.1007/s11412-006-9657-6

• Kienle, Andrea (2006) Integration of knowledge management and collaborative learning by technical supported communication processes. Education and Information Technologies 11:2, 161

• George Sebastien, Labas Hervé (2007,in press), E-Learning Standards as a Basis for Contextual Forums Design, International Journal of Computers in Human Behavior, Elsevier, doi:10.1016/j.chb.2007.01.006