Canvas recently enhanced the Discussions feature so that
users have the option of creating a threaded or non-threaded (flat) discussion.
A threaded discussion nests replies so that a student can
post a reply to a specific post, which means that replies will not necessarily
appear in chronological order; rather, they will be loosely grouped into
separate conversations under the main topic.
A non-threaded discussion essentially lists all replies to a
post right under the main post, in chronological order. This mirrors how a
discussion develops in a face-to-face environment, and is similar to the
comment format used by Facebook and most online blogs.
Each discussion type has its advantages and disadvantages. Threaded
comments may make it easier to follow mini conversations, whereas flat comments
allow the user to see how threads have developed chronologically. Threaded
discussions make it visually apparent who is replying to whom, and tend to
focus the writer on the specific content of the post to which he or she is
responding. On the other hand, in a threaded conversation, the user can readily
compose a response to a single post rather than synthesizing the information
from multiple posts; users may tend to read more of the conversation if the
discussion format is flat. In addition, in a threaded discussion, a new reply
to an early post may be overlooked by those who are inclined to follow the tail
end of a conversation.
For those of you who have used both discussion formats,
which do you prefer—and why? Can you envision different applications within the
same class for each of these formats?
This post was written by Stefanie Sanders (Adjunct Professor and Course Designer).
