Discussion forums or message boards are one of the most commonly used tools in online teaching. Message boards have ancestors that predate the World Wide Web, from the earliest days of digital communication via modems. Forums are arguably the earliest major form of internet social media. Despite the arrival of later social media, voice over internet telephony, or video conferencing, message boards and forums are still a widely-used method for people to communicate through the internet.

For educators, they are valuable as a major tool for asynchronous learning, which is one of the most celebrated aspects of online education. Students in different parts of the world can have conversations with their instructor or fellow students, that take place over an extended period of time, in hours, days or weeks.

In practice, an instructor usually establishes a discussion with a prompt of some sort. For example, this may be a question concerning a class reading. Then, students can reply to this initial prompt, as well as to each other. An instructor moderates this ongoing set of related conversations, interjects occasional comments or further questions as needed, and can assess students based on the quality of their participation.

This is the internet, so participants aren’t simply limited to posting simple text messages. They can enrich their commentary with still images, videos, or any other kind of media available on the web.