If your PLC is important to you at all, you won't want to lock it down to a few hours a week or month. You'll want it to flourish whenever and however it can. One of the most powerful tools for encouraging this is a threaded discussion area.

Online discussion boards encourage and support the quality thinking required to propel your PLC. They offer a convenient and comfortable medium for digesting ideas and forming thoughtful responses.

In addition to respecting the varied cognitive needs of your PLC members, they are convenient since they are not dependent upon place or time. A higher number of your PLC members may choose to participate because the discussion is always available.

An online discussion area also builds community. Knowing that your ideas will be treated with professional courtesy creates trust and comfortability that will extend into face-to-face meetings.

For assistance in setting up a discussion area for your PLC, please refer to the LPS DocuShare User's Guide on the page titled DISCUSSIONS [.pdf], or the Computing Services Training group.


--

Further reading:

• Mapping MLIS Asynchronous Discussions
• A LEARNING TAXONOMY FOR ASYNCHRONOUS DISCUSSION
• The Use of Asynchronous Discussion: Creating a Text of Talk
• Learning through Asynchronous Discussions
• Assessing Online Asynchronous Discussion in Online Graduate Courses: An Empirical Study