Managing Electronic Discussion Forums to Support Character Building

Discussion is part of the activities in learning. The discussion also is also conducted in e-learning. It is expected that the e-forums enable learners to have virtual interaction more intensively. An early observation shows that one of the activities most students did during e-learning is downloading the materials. It is 45.32 % of the students who joined in the discussion forums. The most common activity of this group of students is responding the posted message. What can the teacher do to stimulate the students to be more active, to have more initiative and motivated? Learning through e-discussion forums is a process. It can be evaluated and (re-) designed to develop learners’ characters. This paper offers some ideas to manage the electronic discussion forum to facilitate the students to participate more actively and at the same time the forum can help the students develop their characters. Further, this paper discusses what the teacher can plan and do to manage electronic disscussion forums. Other points to share are the ones on reasonable learning activities in e-discussion forums and their contribution to character building. Keywords: e-discussion, learning activities, character buildin