Module 8- Final Reflections

I thought that the last readings that were assigned were the most interesting. I was surprised that it seemed that hardly any other students chose to discuss the Hara, Bonk & Angeli article in the discussion board. Could it be that because it was the longer article that they did not read it?

The Hara, Bonk & Angeli article “Content Analysis of Online Discussion” raised some interesting issues regarding advantages and disadvantages with discussion boards. They stated that in their study rarely did students ever seem to have “real heated” discussions which led to taking sides, negotiating or compromising on an issue. The article stated: “There clearly is a pressing need to develop pedagogy that motivates students to electronically participate in class discussions beyond standard course requirements. Such pedagogical issues must be addressed before anyone can claim electronic learning success.” I totally find this to be true – too often people are agreeing with or complementing each other’s posts or they are sidetracked from the original topic.

The authors also state that a “lack of time reading all posted messages” is a problem which led to a “one-way, instead of two-way interaction.” I thought that their suggestion of having students divided into smaller discussion groups is a great idea! With this strategy students are not as likely to feel left out.


I have read that supposedly the anonymity of students in a discussion board helps timid or students who lack self-esteem to have the courage to post their thoughts and ideas that they may not discuss in a face-to-face class. I am not sure if this is always the case. There still seems to be those who dominate a discussion board online and there are still those who sit back and post only the minimal amount either because they do not feel they are knowledgeable enough or they may not believe they are articulate or because ???

Module 7 Reflections

Completing my final rough draft was both exciting and exhausting for me. I believe that I have developed some activities that I will be able to put to use in my online courses in the future. I have already shared some ideas with my office mate and she now wants to take this course next year.

I tried to embed an avatar within the body of my final project but I found that you are only allowed to put it into a web page. You can get a free trial at www.oddcast.com. When you get to the home page click on products at the top of the page and then click on SitePal. It allows you to do a demo and if you want you can get a free trial for 15 days. It was fairly easy to do and I was surprised how simple it was to record my voice, you call a number on the phone and record your message and it is instantly entered into you page. It's great - our librarian uses this at our school's library page. I'm thinking about using them to introduce activities. For a fee you can upload your own face.

Below is the avatar that I developed.