Online discussion boards are standard in course tools, and many free, and/or inexpensive incarnations exist on the WWW. Because these are WWW based tools, they require people to go to them and log in. Like e-mail discussion lists, they can be used in a variety of ways, and you can ask students to join boards outside of class. For example, news and other large WWW sites that get lots of traffice usually have active discussion boards. Slate's Fray, for example, features hundreds of messages a week per article. UTNE Reader's Cafe UTNE is well known for it's relatively civil discussions.

1. When you place a reading on reserve at the library, have students use a discussion board to post their responses or notes on the reading. Since most all libraries have computers, students can do this in the library as they read.
2. Use the discussion board during class as way for students to write and post responses to writing prompts (which you can post in the board in advance).
3. Put text you want students to read in a message; ask students to use the reply key and to quote the original message--the text you posted. They can insert comments and annotations in the text.
4. Have students copy and paste drafts of their writing in a board. Create separate strands for peer review groups or study groups. They can reply and comment on one another's paper.
5. Create a discussion board devoted to sharing research sources. Require students to post full citations for a source they discovered an annotation or abstract to go with it.