Fore-Chat
Contribution to the learning process
- Co-operative construction, reconstruction and deconstruction of knowledge
- To work at the content as well as at the relations
As to the integration in the FyR-context see "Online cooperation in your river project".
Targets
To discuss a topic with in detail. Can be used for planning or for interpretation.
IT-tool
Forum:
- Book of the River > My book (Login) > Our partnerships > Work spaces with partner schools > (select your work space) > Forum
This forum is not open to the public; only you (your students) and your partner group have access.
(E-Mail, Voting)
Expenditure of time for preparation and realization
small
Time needed
1-3 hours
Target group
6-30 participants, not at the same place (optimal 10-20)
Requirements and preparation
Topics, method, time expenditure and “rules of the game” are to be clarified with all participants (in the local learning group ore via E-mail).
The Tutor makes clear the forum: With "New entry" you can post a new entry / open up a new thread in your forum, e.g. like followes:
Subject: "Fore-Chat about ... "
Message: "Welcome in our Fore Chat! Let us discuss the following questions..."
After that, use "post reply" and write for each aspect/topic of your discussion a posting. You will create the following structure:
- Fore Chat about ...
- Aspect 1 (Thesis or question)
- Aspect 2 (Thesis or question)
- Aspect 3 (Thesis or question)
- Other topics / questions.
- (Other threads in your forum)
Realization
Start
Every participant has to login into the workspace, select the forum and click at the thread "Fore Chat about ... ". Change to the view-option " "Board View", and all postings inside this thread will be sorted by age (newest posting at the end). When the discussion is running, and more and more messages appear, you have to scroll to the end of the webpage.
Login of participants / Welcome / Small talk (5-10 Minutes). Any questions about the topics and the timetable? (The tutor could create a separate thread for that.)
Main phase
All participants work in the forum at the same time. Each participant makes postings (e.g. questions, answers, opinions, ideas) – just like in a “normal” forum. Because all participants are working at the same time, remarks to the postings will appear soon, and the discussion will be full of life.
Please, note: Our forum doesn´t update automatically. If you are only reading, at odd times you have to click "Refresh" at your internet browser, to load the new postings.
When the discussion about one topic is finished, the tutor could change to the next aspect, "post reply", write a new statement and, thus, focus the attention of all participants to this aspect. Maybe, it has to be done several times to guide the discussion.
Finish
To complete the work. E.g. to fix the next steps. Smalltalk, Logout.
Aftertreatment
(by the tutor or by students): To sum up the results. To write and to distribute the minutes. For that, it is very helpful to change the view-option of the forum: If you use the "Thread-View", all postings will be rearranged by the interrelation between message and reply.
You might publish Results of the For chat in your Book of the River, e.g. under Our exploration for the River > Log book or in the fitting parts of Our results and reflections.
Experiences / results
This method is very efficient. If you want to discuss in detail, and if you have not only a handful of participants, it is much better than “normal” chat.
Tips
It is useful to use the view-option “sort by publication date” in the forum. After the forum chat, the participants can switch back to the “normal” tree view and find all the postings in a tree structure.
If it should be necessary to find out “favorite ideas”, a voting can be used.
The participants should already have some knowledge about the topic. Otherwise (if they must learn at a basic level, e.g. with investigations), a forum with moderation is to be preferred.
Literature
BUSCH/MAYER 2002, p. 99
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