Classroom Tools - Knowledge Forum

People must know how to transform individual ideas into collective knowledge. Those that are able to do so are more successful in their endeavors. Groups that are able to do so are called knowledge-building communities. The key components of such communities are: every individual contributes to a growing body of information; the creation of new knowledge is everyone's most important work; and shared knowledge leads to innovation and growth.

Knowledge Forum is intended to create just such an environment. “Knowledge Forum is an electronic group workspace designed to support the process of knowledge building. With Knowledge Forum, any number of individuals and groups can share information, launch collaborative investigations, and build networks of new ideas…together.” Knowledge Forum shifts the focus from emphasis on individual learning to the building of group knowledge... In Knowledge Forum, the emphasis changes from the completion of tasks to the continual improvement of ideas. Ideas are at the center of a knowledge building discussion.

Below are a few of the features that I found especially noteworthy. These diagrams and captions were taken from the Knowledge Forum website:

Users contribute their ideas in Knowledge Forum in the form of text, graphics, movies, or attachments.

Within a note, scaffolds help users frame and present their ideas to the community. Scaffolds can be customized and changed to suit different purposes and groups.

These ideas then become the objects of discourse within the community. Users can build on, reference, or annotate each other’s ideas. The ideas in the database become connected and grow.

Users frame groups of ideas in a visual context called a View. An idea can be placed in any number of views, allowing the idea to be framed in various contexts.

In a knowledge building community, ideas are continually evolving and improving. Knowledge Forum provides the tools to organize and synthesize these ideas. As ideas grow and change, they can be revised, combined, and reorganized.

            Unfortunately, Knowledge Forum must be purchased. Different pricing options are available but the prices were not provided on the website in the Order Now! section. The different pricing options allow multiple purchase levels including single professor purchase, small group purchase or university department licenses.

            Apart from the features I displayed above, a wiki could accomplish the same tasks as Knowledge Forum. The benefit to using a wiki is the cost; wikis are free. Therefore, for my purposes, I will utilize wikis with my students.