Online Discussions: Improving Education In Cs?

Asynchronous online discussions are considered the cornerstone of online education. Many instructors of face-to-face courses are "web-enabling" their classes to improve learning through critical inquiry using online discussions. In this exploratory study, we collected and analyzed online discussion data from two dissimilar computer science courses (one technical Graphics for Gaming (G4G) course and a writing intensive Science Fiction and Ethics (SF&E) course). Our findings suggest that, overall, making more posts, posting more questions and engaging in Devil's Advocacy have positive effects on learning, while making more informational posts, explaining to others and making longer posts do not. In the SF&E course, all students perceive that posting helped their learning, while in the G4G course students do not, but posting behavior differentiates those who perform well from those who perform poorly.