Discussion Forums

I actually discovered that it was kind of fun searching the discussion forums. At first I thought what a non useful thing for me because I just don’t spend a lot of time reading stuff on the internet. However, when I started searching for things that I was kind of interested in I found some interesting things. I found discussions on my breed of dog, the Chihuahua, my vehicle, Chevy 2500 HD Duramax, guns, and my cell phone, the LG Voyager. All very entertaining. I did discover that the narrower the topic the better off I was. But the general search proved pretty useful too.

Wow! These discussion forums could prove disastrous in a classroom. I only say that because there is always the possibility that that one “special” student decides to look for something that is not school appropriate. And now there is tons of explaining to do on everyone’s part. May not be a road I would want to travel down.

However, I really see the upside to these forums. What a great way to find information at your fingertips. The searching would have to be highly monitored by the teacher, maybe searching ahead of time and then doing the search as a whole class and not going where a search has not been done. It is just a fabulous tool to find information.

I would have to say that I am on the fence on positive aspects outweighing the negative aspects. There is just too much liability in an educational setting but having all that educational information readily available is certainly a draw.