What is the difference between a conversation and a discussion?
A discussion is a centrally hosted and organized engagement with students, typically associated with online, hybrid, and flipped classrooms. While you can use discussions to develop or share ideas, you can also use conversations for quick exchanges on specific content. For example, when you create assignments, you can enable conversations. Anyone can make a contribution to the assignment conversation – ask for help, share sources, or answer questions others have. Everyone can read the conversations while they view the assignment.
Discussions | Conversations |
|---|---|
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Discussions can be created and configured directly on the course outline or within the main discussions page. Instructors have the option to include a specific discussion on the course content page. Discussions can be ungraded or graded. | Conversations are optional and can be enabled as needed within any content item or assignment or test. For example, enable a conversation on an upcoming project that may have a lot of questions from students outside of class. Since conversations do not appear on the discussion page or in a central area, we do not recommend enabling conversations on everything. Conversations are always ungraded. |