Tutorial for using iEARN's WWW-based Forums

Bookmarking Pages and Subscribing to Discussion Topics

We will introduce the process for bookmarking and subscribing to specific sites/discussions in the iEARN Internactive Forums. If you are able and would like to actually work directly on the forums during the tutorial, place your mouse/curser over this address http://foro.iearn.org and a window will open automatically. You will need to Register and log-in before this will be possible. If you have not yet Registered, see www.iearn.org/tutorial/database.html

In this tutorial we will bookmark the "asiasoc" forum where students discuss issues facing Asian societies. At the main iEARN Forum Page, pull down and select the Asiasoc discussion forum. Click "Go" if it does not go automatically to the "asiasoc" forum. You will see the list of most recent topics in this forum:

If you would like to "Bookmark" this and other forums, click on the "Bookmark" link under the title of the forum. You will see the following window:

To see a list of your bookmarks at any time, click on"Message Center" at the bottom of all pages and your bookmark list will appear. To go back to the "asiasoc" forum, click on the linked title in the bookmark section of the Message Center.

Similarly, you can "subscribe" to particular discussions within a forum, so that you will be automatically notified if new messages are posted to them. In the list of discussion topics in "asiasoc," there is a topic titled "Poverty on The Street." We will look at this discussion and subscribe to it. After we click on the topic, we see the primary discussion topic and the list of responses that have been posted to it:

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If you are interested in following this discussion and would like to "subscribe" to it, click on the "Subscribe" button.

Click on "OK." From now on, you can click on the "Check Messages" button at the bottom of each page wherever you are in the iEARN Forums and it will tell you if new messages have been posted to the topics you have subscribed to. You can subscribe to any many discussions as you wish.

When you see a new message has been posted, we hope you will post a response.

We encourage you and your students to post 3 RESPONSES for every new TOPIC. Everyone is waiting for a response to their topic. Similarly, your students will also want to receive responses. So, the key to a successful interactive network is for everyone to post RESPONSES! The responses can be as simple as "I have read your message and I like the issues you raise." Everyone wants to know that their message has been read!

Other parts of this Tutorial explain how to Register to participate in the iEARN Interactive forums, how to post a response or new discussion topic and use the Search function. To Immediately go to the Forums, click HERE.