Discussion Forum
Posted by David Geelan on June 28 2011 at 2:33 p.m.
There's this forum, but I was taken aback by the lack of a 'people's forum' for deeper discussion than Twitter allows at EdMedia. Seemed ironic in the light of all the presentations about how important connected learning is!
So, like we always told our kids growing up: "Don't whinge, find solutions!"
So I built this site over lunchtime: and now I'm 'Field-of-Dreamsing' it. Hoping that, since I built it, you will come.
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Gah, I'm not sure this site included the link. Here 'tis: http://bravus.com/edmedia11
Posted
Right now we're working on adding Markdown formatting to discussion comments.
Posted in reply to David Geelan
Hi David!
You can certainly create a discussion here to start interaction at Ed-Media.
If you feel like the discussion forum can be improved, please let me know! I'm very committed to encouraging interaction between attendees online, so feedback and suggestions might work even better than creating a separate discussion forum!
Posted
G'day Jordan
Thanks for your reply, and I really hope my impulsive action (or my post here) didn't feel like criticism of what you've worked so hard to develop.
I think this site has a lot of potential, and if it turns out that publicizing it better means my site is redundant I'm very happy with that.
At the moment this site feels more like a blog - opening post and replies. I do feel that a discussion forum design like the one I set up has more potential to support rich, participatory discussion.
Anyway, please take my attempt as an example of the DIY spirit and that 'hacker ethic' Alec Couros talked about, not as criticism.
Posted
The discussion forum is meant to be a full discussion forum. As you noted, it's entirely possible to create new discussions and then people can reply to them. I think the way that this forum differs is that it does not have categories for grouping the discussions. Other than that, it is intended to offer the same features as a forum.
Posted in reply to David Geelan
Sitting in Erik Duval's keynote this morning, it occurs to me that the forum I built (for everyone) is open while this one is closed.
Posted
By closed do you mean available only to conference registrants?
Posted in reply to David Geelan
Yeah, that's the main thing I mean. Erik was talking about how his courses are open to the world and maybe 10% of comments come from non-students. I think a forum centred around this conference but open to the world would have a better chance of evolving a rich and complex discussion. Sure, that would involve relinquishing some level of control... but that's the price we pay for openness.
Posted