One thing I would like to try for various University classes is to provide a blog-type forum for student questions and discussions.
Having never really done something like this before, I'd like input from the phys-l list. Here are some questions to get this going:
1) How actually useful is such a thing? I could use it as a repository of homework and quiz questions, with student responses posted semi-anonymously. Also, explanations, derivations, proofs, and heuristics which are particularly tricky or only dreamt up post-facto could find a nice home there.
2) It would be available nearly all the time, and *perhaps* serve as a source of ideas and answers to both me and students. It might also have to be policed heavily.
3) Should it be open to the general public? To just the student body? To just current class members? (This might have to change radically -- I'm guessing to make it more restrictive -- as more trolls and spammers make their presence known and annoying).
4) Are there specific hosts/software which make such a thing particularly easy? Do they allow for easy inclusion of things like numbered equations and graphics and LaTeX code?
5) Are threaded comments of particular use?
6) What sort of time-drain can I expect?
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"The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable." ~~Roger Zelazny, in "Lord of Light"
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