Online class discussion forums

[Trik'Stari]

So, I've recently begun another semester in my online degree program and I just thought I'd vent a little, but also get everyone else's opinions on Online class "discussion forums".

 

To begin with, the biggest thing about them that annoys the crap out of me is the horrific format that my school currently uses. The text box (thing I'm typing in now) is so tragically small that it makes me want to laugh or cry. Going further, the way that posts are listed and the way the response system in general seems to work is just so....wrong. If I reply to another student, they don't get an update about it like we do here, typing a link into the text box doesn't make it an actual hyperlink, etc.

 

Overall, it just seems like whoever designed it has absolutely no experience in online forums of any kind, or at least the kind that make me want to shoot myself in the leg. I could go on about how everyone always seems so fakely nice and interested.

 

I dunno, I just have to spend about 1 to 2 hours on mine each day, and the entire time all I can think is "this isn't how people communicate online, this is retarded bullcrap, almost no one talks this way, etc"

 

Am I the only one who feels this way?

 

(I put this in general discussion because I do feel it is mildly related to technology considering the format they use is just....horrible.)

[Imabigmac]

I started to take an online history Course because my teachers were on strike in September. I ended up dropping the course becuase of the discussion forums they had.

Everyone used the same title, and whenever you would go to respond to post you couldn't tell where it from All the others or who wrote it becuase they were called the same thing.

[Menzenski]

My school uses piazza, and I'm a big fan of it.  I guess it really just depends on the implementation, because I'm pretty sure I'd dislike the one you're using based on how you described it.

[Lepp]

The class discussion forums that I used in college, 2 years ago, were roughly the same. There was no notification system, the format was terrible, links didn't work (though copy and paste isn't too difficult), and the students in my class ended up switching to a google program (I forget what it was and hangouts didn't exist yet) for communication.

 

If used for anything more than submitting homework (which was how the forums were used in most of my classes [you could comment on other people's essays if you wanted]), I pretty much hated it.

[Shaqo_Wyn]

Hmm, here we just go to class. Much more fun, much more social. 

[Trik'Stari]

Hmm, here we just go to class. Much more fun, much more social. 

Meh, not everyone is comfortable in their own skin if you know what I mean.

 

My main complaint is that these are required discussion boards that you have to participate in, in order to pass the class. But the implementation is so horrible that it honestly fights you to get that done.

 

And we use Moodle....which is fucking retarded.