Journal #3 Keep Them Chatting

Cole, Jeannie (February 2009). Keep Them Chatting. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37, Retrieved April 22, 2009, from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/200902/

Jennie Cole's article focuses on how to keep K-12 students engaged in online classroom discussions via chatrooms, message boards or wikis. In an online setting, students frequently lose interest and move on to other topics of personal interest. Suggestions she gives includes asking high level-open ended questions and inquiries, giving students plenty of freedom and creativity to explore their topics and keep discussing with their peers. She encourages peer evaluations and collaborations, giving students the opportunity to work with their classmates and to evaluate other student work. By giving students open-ended questions and inquiries questions, she's helping students develop higher level critical thinking thinking skills, which are necessary for collegiate level courses, and encouraging students to take learning into their own hands.

Question # 1 Why are student collaboration and peer evaluations important?
Group projects are important for developing teamwork and cooperation skills, essential for a future in the workforce. Collaborations allow students to feed ideas off of each other, which can be a great way to keep students engaged in the topic, which seems to be the primary concern when dealing with classroom discussions, particularly in an online setting. By getting to evaluate other student work, they are able to get ideas from their peers that can inspire their own work, and by critiquing problems with peer work, be able to better evaluate and edit their own content.

Question # 2 What are the benefits of online discussions rather than traditional class discussions?
By posing on a message board or wiki, students and teachers are able to look back and reference previous discussions easily. Online discussions also make it easy to incorporate media such as pictures, movies, and websites seamlessly. Posting online also reinforces and helps students practice good writing skills, which are frequently weaker then their verbal abilities.