discussion forum functionality is key for this purpose, other things are nice to have but often blur the decision about the forum to choose. First it is good to know that many many online platforms offer similar functionality: a discussion forum, the possibility of personal pages, one page with the members, a document sharing tools, the ability to create subgroups and management tools for administrators. Often there are good functionality including announcing events, hold discussions and news announce. Situation 2: Now at work. Possibility 1. It's free. MORE >>

Nonetheless, some sort of management of the forum is considered important in driving its use. In the meantime, bear in mind that social forums grow organically. Yammer has been quite a success at my workplace. Not off the charts like at Deloitte , yet very much alive and growing. It warms my heart to see my colleagues asking and answering questions, sharing web articles, crowdsourcing ideas, gathering feedback, praising team mates, comparing notes on where to buy the best coffee, and even whining a little. The results are summarised in the following graph. enterprise 2.0 MORE >>

While this may be true in some cases, I have found that using forums to create a repository of user generated content is sometimes the best way to meet this need.  . What is a forum? Forums come by many names such as message boards, bulletin boards, online discussion sites, newsgroups, etc.  A forum is a platform where users can engage in an ongoing conversation with other users.  By introducing a forum to your learners they will be able to ask questions and receive a variety of detailed responses from their colleagues.  So how can YOU use a forum? MORE >>

So I want to find a new tool that is optimized for discussing content and ideas in a user-friendly, social media enabled and transparent way. MobiMOOC will focus on mLearning, as such I need to find a discussion forum software that is accessible to smartphones (at least) and has an e-mail upload function (this also allows learners to add content to the discussion forum with their wap enabled or simple internet connected cell-phones). At the same time I want the discussion forum to be social media minded (as a lot of social media is used during MobiMOOC). MORE >>

An announcement board kept us up to date, the discussion forums were easy to find, and the final assessment was explained clearly from Day 1. While I initially found this frustrating (having to bounce between them in case I missed out on anything), I now agree in hindsight that multiple platforms are a good idea – on the proviso that the Coursera-hosted forum remains the plenary. Through the discussions in the course, participation in the social media groups, and comments on my blog posts, I connected with some incredibly smart people from all over the world. MORE >>