MOODLE discussion for collaborative knowledge building: Students’ discourse and teachers’ practice

Abstract

Both asynchronous communication and synchronous chat support web-based dialogues, but the asynchronous nature of discussion forums (also known as Web Bulletin Board or WBB) can encourage more in-depth and meaningful dialogues to construct knowledge. This unique nature for knowledge construction in terms of formulating ideas by reacting to previous contributions and building knowledge together in a discourse community has shown that learners take an active part in constructing knowledge in an authentic ICT environment. While many have acknowledged the role of discourse in the building of knowledge, there is little empirical evidence to suggest that collaborative knowledge building can be investigated independently of the discourse. Thus, how corpus-based methods are able to deal with the knowledge-construction process in discourse remains a worthwhile question to be answered. This study aims to explore the students’ online discourse of knowledge construction and teachers’ practice to facilitate such knowledge-building process.