Multimodal Interactive Tools for Online Discussions and Assessment

Asynchronous Online Discussions: Overview

Asynchronous online discussion boards both enable students to explicitly express their thoughts in writing and promote communication among teachers and students. In addition, researchers agree that asynchronous online discussion settings support collaborative knowledge construction, critical thinking, and greater realism and motivation to learn (Bassett, 2011; De Oliveira & Olesova, 2013; deNoyelles, Mannheimer Zydney, & Baiyun, 2014; Gao et al., 2013). Participation in asynchronous online discussions is based on willingness; therefore, contributors may be expected to be individuals who are self-motivating and goal-oriented, who acquire from experiences, read, and evaluate other messages in relation to the discussed topic, and who think about the topic (Ozyurt & Ozyurt, 2011). However, limited participation and interaction in asynchronous online discussions appears to be a persistent and widespread problem. To solve this issue, peer facilitation has been proposed as a means to encourage a greater degree of interaction, as well as a model for productive online discussion (Ng, Cheung, & Hew, 2012). Other factors identified for a successful asynchronous discussion are: presence, threaded posts, quality posts, discussion style, conversational style, feedback, and the use of questions (Fear & Erikson-Brown, 2014).