As a group communicate via blackboard or discussion groups.
I was invited by a group to join the Curtin Internet Students through the “ NING” website, (Johnson, 2009). This was setup by another NET11 Student.
Individually I joined the following:-
- Webhosting and Blogs for Free through list.topica.
- Menieres Disease (Coping List), which enables me to get feedback from people who have or know people who have Menieres Disease.
EMAIL LISTS
PROS
Up to Date information |
Information to you without having to look for it |
Meeting new friends |
Sharing a common interest or bond |
The choice to join a public or private group |
The choice to have my emails sent privately |
Was easy to unsubscribe to certain lists. |
Could read the messages days later and still be kept in the loop with regards to the conversation |
CONS
Far too many emails to read |
Could not decide what emails I wanted to read |
Lot of junk mail came through |
Had to read everyone else’s posts and comments |
Reading others offensive comments |
Time consuming to initially setup |
Unsubscribed to list but still receiving daily updates |
Got frustrated with users who joined in the conversation and made comments that were not associated with the discussion topic. |
The Discussion Board is used for discsussing Topics, Items of interest etc. When you join a email list, you already know why you want join, and you have very little control over the email replies.
The only problem with discussion boards, anyone can join in at anytime, and unless they have read the previous threads they can become intrusive in your conversation.
I prefer Discussion Boards as opposed to email lists. According to the Curtin Discussion Board most students agree that email lists are time consuming and are not fans of using email lists, most preferring the discussion board.
