I had a very nice conversation last week with one of our Language Arts teachers, Jennifer C. We were talking about our Learning Management System, SchoolFusion, and she mentioned that she’d been getting some really wonderful responses using the Discussion Board feature. She said that her students’ online writing was generally more thoughtful than what she received from them in class. We talked a little bit about the reasons why and theorized that it may be because our students today are Digital Natives and the online world is very much a part of their “comfort zone.” More so, perhaps, than even the “real world”.

Given this conversation, those of you not currently using the Discussion Board feature might want to give it a try. If you are interested, here’s how to enable and use it:

To enable:

1. Log in to SchoolFusion and go the your class webpage.
2. Click Update Class/Section Configuration.
3. On the right under Class/Section Settings, click the pencil next to Message Board.
4. Adjust your message board settings as desired and click Click here to edit the Message Board Setting.

To use:

1. Return to your class/section webpage. You should now see a section called Discussion Board on the right side.
2. In the Discussion Board section, click start a discussion.