New Discussion Tools for LSA Instructors

Learn about the new flexible and powerful online discussion tools and how they can provide an engaging supplement to Canvas Discussions.
by Emily Ravenwood, Learning and Teaching Consultants Manager

LSA instructors have several new discussion and collaboration tools available for the 20-21 academic year. Since the move to remote and online teaching calls for more flexible and powerful tools to support the kind of learning that was possible in-person, LSA Technology Services researched and secured two brand new tools, and negotiated an expansion of an existing tool. LSA now has unlimited access, this year, to Yellowdig, Harmonize (fall term only), and Notebowl, to supplement the capabilities of Canvas Discussions.

YellowDig

Yellowdig has been in use at LSA for several years, and provides a single stream of posts and responses with social-media style features and multimedia posting. This tool is best used for community-building and broad-ranging discussions over time because it provides only a single board for each course. It also has sophisticated gamification features built into the scoring and structure of the board. Yellowdig is now available to any LSA instructor, and can be enabled in the course navigation.

Harmonize

Harmonize is a new tool and is currently a fall semester only pilot, though sufficient interest will put it in the running for a permanent license. This tool provides pinboard-style threaded discussions in which each response to the initial prompt creates a new ‘card’ on the discussion board. From there, replies to that response will thread within the ‘card’. Harmonize provides multiple boards per course and has very powerful multimedia and collaboration tools, including annotation of images and videos, on-the-spot recording for audio and video (separate from your My Media account), and integrated chat and videoconferencing to let students shift between asynchronous and synchronous discussion. Harmonize is available to any LSA instructor, only for the fall term, and can be enabled in the course navigation (ungraded boards) or added as an external-tool type Assignment (graded boards).

Notebowl

Notebowl is another new tool and currently a one-year pilot. Notebowl provides a very streamlined, social-media style experience with minimal multimedia tools. Because Notebowl’s discussion feed updates in real-time, Notebowl assignments are best used for fostering rapid discussions, or as a back-channel discussion board during lectures or hybrid-course synchronous discussions when the remote students may find it easier to participate by text than by audio. However, Notebowl also has a “Bulletin” feature that can be enabled in the course navigation, which can function as a sort of private Facebook page. The Bulletin is ungraded and displays a badge when there are new posts. Notebowl is available to any LSA instructor and can be enabled in the course navigation (the Bulletin) or added as an external-tool type assignment (graded boards).
 

Thumbnail LSA Discussion Tool Comparison Chart

To learn more about these tools and how they might be best used in your courses, please request a consultation with an LSA Technology Services Learning and Teaching Consultant!

Email
Release Date: 09/30/2020
Category: Innovate Newsletter
Tags: Technology Services