eFUNDI FORUMS TOOL PREPS CLASS

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The eFundi Forums tool is being used for creating and managing discussion boards. It allows for students, lecturers, project leaders, and team members to discuss topics at length in a well organised digital environment. The instructors may set up threaded discussion questions that can be read or contributed to by the entire class or designated groups. In response, the students can write inline comments or exchange files. This tool records the number of posts by students, and forum posts can be linked to the Gradebook for grading.
A keen adopter of this tool, Ms. Adéle Jordaan (lecturer for Academic Literacy) conveys that the biggest advantages for her include the following:
•  to ensure the means by which
    individual work are supported
    by using forums;
•  utilise forums as an integral part   
    of the lectures;
•  receive feedback on formative
    assessment;
•  easily handle the assigning of
    marks; and
•  include student’s Forum an-
    swers lectures.
She mentioned that her new lecturing technique form part of the participation requirements of the Institutional Teaching Excellence Award (ITEA) (see presentation).  This award is directed towards a lecturer for outstanding teaching and learning with consideration of the entire spectrum of activities pertaining to teaching and learning.
So far the efforts payed off, based on student feedback which pertinently stated that forums lead to better class preparation. It furthermore provides an opportunity to note other students’ view on or explanation of certain topics.
Some Forums tool features are:
•  Grading: A point value and sent
    to the Gradebook with coments.
• Availability dates: Forums and
   topics can be released according
    to specified dates.
•  Moderation: Instructors can
    choose to moderate messages
    posted to topics.
•  Counts of unread posts at a
    glance: On the Home page,
    a student may see their unread
    Forum posts.
•  Email notifications: New pos-
    tings in conversations to which
    you have contributed will send
    notifications. The option to
    receive no email notifications is
    possible.
•  Statistics: Forum statistics are
    available for lectures to view the
    level of individual participants.
•  Group awareness: Lecturer may
   change forum setting to allow
   predefined groups to allow or
   deny access.
•  Composing messages: A rich-
    text editor allows for editing.
    Here you may add attachments
    linking to files or web links in
    Resources.