Discussion board and Forum

In my opinion forum can encourage students' participation and share every individual student's experience. Because every member can be anonymous in the forum, this could encourage some quiet students to express their opinions without being embarrassing when they make mistakes. On the other hand, teacher can give mandatory assignment to students and require them to make comments and discussions on the forum. This method can push every student to think and to participate in the discussion on the matter that required in the course. Forum can also stimulate students to increase their typing skills by posting and reply thread in the classroom. There are some challenges associated with forum when using it for teaching and learning. First, forums are not synchronous. Students or users need to physically click the refresh bottom to update the thread. Second, students need to be motivated enough to increase the participations. Teachers need to provide in depth information/materials regarding to the topic and the subject matter. Unfortunately, teacher has no effective method to monitor whether student have student the materials provided.