What exactly are electronic bulletin boards?
One of the many names (others include conference board and discussion board) where asynchronous text-based online communication can occur. Many bulletin boards provide the ability for users to have threaded discussions about specific topics. Bulletin boards are widely used in online courses. They can resemble seminars in a face-to-face environment. The online instructor (or any other participant) may pose questions to be discussed, and students can then write responses and post them to the bulletin board. Students can comment on other students’ remarks and the discussion can be very lively. It is worth looking at www.webct.com and www.blackboard.com. Guided tours of these sites will provide you with an in-depth look at how electronic bulletin boards operate. Both WebCT and Blackboard are complete course management systems (CMS). If all you want to include in your online classroom is a facility for threaded, asynchronous discussions there are many other products (Discus, WWW Board, etc.
