Forums for Teachers

How is your exploration of the online world so far? Are you having fun or having trouble? Have you made any online friends or mentors? 

In the previous article in this series, we explored tips and tricks on using Twitter to expand your online personal learning network. Educators in tech-savvy areas like the US have taken to tweeting and following, with the availability of smart phones that can connect to the Internet anywhere and anytime. But for teachers who are not yet so much into the social networking mania, it's not as easy to connect through Twitter. Good thing there's an old school platform for connecting and contributing: forums!

Forums

An online forum is like a virtual community, with members and activities and common interests. Forums on a multitude of topics abound, from geographic or cultural to personal and educational. Forums are a great venue for establishing connections with people who share your passion or profession. Because of the nature of forums (forum: a place to discuss or express views), it's a great place to learn various perspectives on topics you might not be able to discuss in full at the faculty room before going home.

Take the first step and scout for available and credible forums online. Try a simple search through Google of keywords "forums for teachers" or "Education forums," or similar phrases. When you type in "Philippine education forum," one of the top results is www.eduphil.org.

Once you've found the right forum or forums, join by using your email address to sign up. Once you've created an account, you can choose to spruce up your user profile with a quirky or a professional screen name, depending on how you want to be known. Add a photo if you will, and some details about your work. Just make sure not to be too specific as to be vulnerable to identity theft!

Unlike Twitter, its homepage isn't as simple because it's pretty old school. You click buttons or links to navigate pages, and have to visit every page to see updates. Although it seems more of a hassle, if you detest navigating through an onslaught of posts or prefer seeing past posts as well as most recent ones, old school is cool.

A forum has several parts which correspond to certain functions.

• Categories or Topics. The creator of a forum usually creates categories or topics related to the forum's specific interest group. These serve as umbrella topics for more specific subjects, or the creator can also provide subtopics already.
• Post. A post is any material that you publish online. In forums, it is usually in text form, but you can also include images, links to websites, or even files. Your post is your contribution to a topic or subtopic. It can be your view on an issue, a survey or question, an FYI or press release, as long as it opens up a discussion. After all, that's the purpose of the forum, and the post is the heart of it.
• Thread. A thread is a series of replies to a post. A forum thread is more stable and much easier to peruse compared to a Twitter thread. You can reply to a post or contribute to a thread by responding to the content of the post or to another user's views, or by asking a question or providing additional information.
• Message Center or Inbox. This feature enables you to send and receive messages. This means you can have an exchange with another user privately. This is a great way to stay connected if you don't want to reveal your personal email address or mobile number, but want to interact with other users without other people reading your conversations.
• Gallery. Sometimes, words aren't enough, so some forums have galleries where members can upload photos or images. The forum creator or moderator may set limits on what pictures or images can be uploaded.
• Poll. Some forums have a poll feature which asks members to vote on a question or issue. This allows you to get a feel of how most active members think or what their preferences are on a number of topics, from forum-related or non-related things.

Even with the rise of Twitter, there are still a majority of communities that use online forums. These are just some of the things you can easily do in an online forum:

• Ask a question. Looking at the posts in www.eduphil.org, it looks like there are teachers who seek information or answers in forums. It can be a question about the most recent memorandum from DepEd or tips on how to use UbD (Understanding by Design). It's almost certain someone will post a reply, particularly the forum creator or moderator/s. Not all replies will be specifically helpful, but members will point you to websites where you can find out more.
• Debate. Where there's a space for discussion, there's a space for debate! Exercise your skills in reasoning and test your knowledge by engaging other forum members in a debate or discussion. You open your thoughts to scrutiny and may, in the end, get some constructive feedback… and learn more! Sometimes it will get heated but keep it professional and intellectual.
• Share! If there's a piece of advice, a book, or even a recipe you come across, share it by posting. If you have resources or documents you think can assist a fellow teacher or a teacher fledgling, post it! This is your way of making sure that if anyone ever needs information or assistance in something, your post is there for them find. Sometimes, even after a year or two, someone will find your post and thank you for the help.
• Find peers. The longer you are as a forum member, and the more active you are, the more people you'll meet with whom you have something in common. It can be your locality or division, alma mater, field of specialization or hobby. It can be a common philosophy of education that you share. You start the connection by replying to posts and eventually, you will be comfortable and secure enough to exchange private messages and even meet up. In fact, Twitter users do meet ups, too!