Online Discussions Activity

Week 3 Activities

Observe & Consider

UW-Madison has awesome learning technology support and consultation.  Units like L&S LSS, DoIT Academic Technology, MERIT (School of Ed), Wendt Commons (Engineering), and more combine to help meet many of the learning technology needs across campus. While UW-Madison supports a number of technology tools for teaching and learning, it is also helpful to be aware of the chaning technology landscape as tools evolve and new features become available.

The two activities below are designed to help us investigate technology tools that could be used to facilitate an online discussion!

Connect & Share

Activity 1: Discussion Tool Wiki

Let's create a list of technology tools that enable online discussion. Our emphasis for this exercise: Quantity!

• Do a web search
• Draw on your past experience at other institutions
• Survey UW-Madison supported technology tools, or
• Talk to friends and colleagues

When you find a your tool, visit the wikispace page and write the name of the tool and provide a link (if available).

Activity 2: Discussion Tool Insights

Now that we have a list of discussion tools in our wikispace, choose a techology tool from the wikispaces list (one you found, one that looks interesting, or one you've used before). In your discussion post, briefly describe the tool and note a useful feature or two. Then check over the discussion posts. Respond to one of your peers to ask a question, make an association with another tool, or describe an idea for how you could use this tool in a course.