Forum
Definition
- A forum is a network technology for holding discussions.
- Original definition of the word: The open public space in the middle of a Roman city, especially the Roman Forum (eg Roman Forum) Wikipedia
Technical kinds of forums
There are three major families according to functionality
- Threaded forums display discussions in threads like "old" UseNet News Forums did.
- "Boxed" forums display discussions in boxes within boxes (boxes are arranded in linear fashion).
- Specially enhanced forums for education, like Knowledge forum or a computer-mediated anchored forum (e.g. CaMILE)
Choosing a kind of forum is not an innoncent choice for an educator, i.e. we believe that "modern" popular Internet Forums like PhPBB are often not suitable for a given design, e.g. avoid it if the goal is to organize discussion, rather use a threaded forums for this. But since threaded forums are almost extinct now, you'd have to use a News engine. In addition, modern Forums have so many features and buttons that untrained teachers and students get lost.
Pedagogical use
Forums are the Computer-mediated communication tool for several reasons:
- Educational use can be tracked back to the eighties
- Any sort of portals, including LMSs provide forums
- They behave in some way like mailing lists, therefore most users are somewhat familiar with the technology
- ....
Sorry this part is really under construction and missing ...
Links
[http://www.phpbb.com/ PhpBB
References
Guzdial, Mark & Turns, Jennifer (2000), Effective Discussion through a computer-mediated anchored forum, Journal of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 437. [http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/S15327809JLS0904_3