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This plan to building a labtop program really interests me because I would like my students to have this. I like the idea of extending the learning outside the work day between student peers and teachers. The easy outlined five steps for any school to build a labtop program makes this seem attainable. The school administrator in Peducah summed it up by stating , "It takes a tremendous amount of work and patience to get teachers ready and to get administrators ready and to get your IT department ready, but what's already in place is that the students are ready," For my district the funding and the IT would be the most difficult challenges to overcome. I do think that it would do such wonders for all kids living in the digital age.

How to make a disucussion board effective. Divide a large group into smaller study sections. Make certain to post application questions, not fact-based or calculation questions. Apply the questions to the students' life/future.

The author describes using discussion boards for his accounting course.

This article highlights some key points about how to successfully integrate online discussions into core subject content. He does this by pairing down the discussion groups much like we are doing in the Web 2.0 course right now ,"When I did discussions with the class as a whole, the students grumbled about having to read repetitive messages. They were much more willing to participate in the study group if there were relatively few messages". He is also looking for an inital post and a follow up post written with correct grammar and spelling.

In this article, Rob Kelly discusses how he uses online discussion boards to enhance the learning in his classroom. Students end up helping one another, and the conversations go beyond accounting so that students really see the applicability of the subject matter to their future lives. Students who really excel in accounting help students who struggle, and the split classroom discussion helps to make it manageable for all students.

This article talks about how to make online discussions work for skills-based courses. Using Professor Roger Gee's practice and approach as an example, the author offers examples to guide students in expressing themselves creatively and persuasively, which engages and motivates them. The class is divided into study groups for the discussions. Each discussion begins with a posting by Professor Gee, the discussions are to begin after students have read the material, viewed the PowerPoint, and taken a quiz. Professor Gee encourages students to work within the study groups to help each other.

This article shows how to let online discussions allow for higher order thinking skills to flourish in a skills-based classroom.

"Making Online Discussion Boards Work for Skills-Based Courses" is an article written by Rob Kelly and posted in a higher education newsletter. The author describes ways on how online discussions can enhance learning in skills-based online courses. He suggests rather than having students resolve math problems for example, steer students to coming up with an opinion supported by facts they have learned. Students should have the opportunity to have read the lesson, PowerPoints and other related resources before a discussion takes place. The discussions should also give students the opportunity to share opinions and how the material may affect their personal life. Like our class, the author suggest each student to post a reply to the instructor's question and reply to at least one other student's reply. The posting should have good spelling and grammar as if they were in the business world. Another way to enhance learning is to have students work collaboratively and help each other out. The suggestions offered by the author are similar to what we have received in this course. Although the article is written for higher education, I would assume, but I have to also wonder if this is valuable information at the secondary level too?

This is a first-rate article on how to run an online discussion for a class on a technical subject. The article elucidates the techniques used by an accounting professor at San Diego Messa College. Issues addressed include whether to focus on calculations or opinions, the size of discussion groups, at what point in the lesson plan students should post, and what role the teacher should play in introducing a topic. Professor Gee advocates that posts focus on opinions rather than facts or calculations, since the latter provides an opportunity to spread error. He also discusses dividing a class of 35 into two groups, having students post after they have reviewed a substantial part of the lesson, and the teacher introducing discussion topics and modeling the first comment.

As a teacher of a 2 year high school accounting program, I enjoyed reading this article about Professor Roger Gee's use of online discussion boards. I introduce my students to several elements of personal finance as it relates to a service business owner's personal finances and wondered how I could engage my students to delve a bit deeper into their own thoughts on their personal finances now and in the future. I will be using Gee's suggestion as it helps students use some critical thinking to plan for their future. Some of the items mentioned actually are part of the "flipped classroom" concept; students already having read the lesson, watched the PowerPoints, and taken the test. Then comes the discussion using the learned skills. I appreciate this information for a skill-based course be it high school or community college. As we articulate with our neighboring community college, and attempt to make our students college-ready, this concept fits the bill.