The Electric Educator: Insert a Threaded Discussions in A Google Site

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Insert a Threaded Discussions in A Google Site

One of my great disappointments with Google Sites is the fact that it doesn't have a threaded discussion feature. I have been told that this feature will be added in the future, but for now, it's only a dream. For classroom teachers this is a problem because discussion forums are a great way to encouraged discussion and debate outside of class.

My initial disappointment gave way to excitement when I discovered the Tal.ki Sites Gadget. This third-party Gadget allows you to embed a threaded discussion into your Google Site.

The downside to Tal.ki is that it does require authentication. The good news is that you can use one of numerous login credentials (Google, Yahoo, Facebook, etc) to do so. Chances are good that you and your students already have at least one of these. Google Apps accounts will work as well.

Here's how to embed a Tal.ki forum into your Google Site.

2 comments:

  1. I was looking for that. Thanks Josh.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for your very clear instructions! The problem I see is that Tal.ki is not actually a "threaded" discussion--my students cannot respond directly to a classmate. Rather, their response comment goes to the bottom of the page and the "conversation" becomes disjointed. Am I missing something?

    ReplyDelete

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