How To

Set up a discussion forums per instructions for setting up a discussion forum. Your guest speaker will need a UW NetID to participate in the forum. Pleae request the Distance Learning Design Department will arrange for your guest's UW NetID.

Best Practices

Provide guest speakers with the same Web address (URL) that the students use to access the discussion forum. It is good from anywhere in the world where there is a connection to the Internet.

There are several ways that guest speaker can interact with students. You may ask the guest speaker to post some initial ideas over a one- or two-week period , respond to students' questions, Or, you may ask students to post questions a week or two before the time period that the guest speaker is scheduled to participate in the forum. The guest responds over a designated time period (a few days or a week). The forum can end there, or students can pose a second round of questions, and the guest can respond. No matter which method is use, the guest should provide summary comments at one or more points in the discussion.

Inform students that they are free to participate in this forum using pseudonyms if they so desire. This will protect their privacy if they prefer to remain anonymous to the guest speaker.