Saturday, April 12, 2008

Using forum for school

I think that forums are useful. In fact, I know a lot of people who go on forum to learn about many different subjects and to get tips and pieces of advice. I think that it can be very interesting and useful to use forums in schools, because it will give to the students the chance to ask questions to others and to the teacher and to get different information such as vocabulary explanation for activities and much more. Moreover, the material on the forum will accumulate over the years and the students will have the chance to see, and to read about what the students did in the previous years and to give ideas for the students that will participate to the forum in the following years. There are many advantages for the students to be able to participate in a forum related to school, but there are also advantages for the teacher. In fact, you can get feedback from your students about the activities, the classes, your methods of teaching and how you manage your classroom. It can also be a good way to establish a kind of positive relationship with your students because you tried to link activities that they like (going on computer and surfing on internet) with the class material.
Even though it seems easy to start a forum, I think that you still need time to work on it, to look at it and to participate on it. In fact, you have to see what your students are doing and what they are talking about if you want to have feedback. Moreover, you have to remove or to close the discussions you do not think that are appropriate to the forum. It is also important to establish rules for your forum, so the students will be respectful toward each other and towards the teacher.
In conclusion, I would like to say that Forums are very interesting to use in classroom but it might not be as easy as it seems. I would probably , if I have the chance, try to use that kind of technology in a classroom where I know that the students are good students and that they would not go crazy about that and say everything they think. However, it might not be possible to use in every single classroom in every level.

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