Ed Discussion for Instructors & TAs

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• What Is Ed Discussion? 
• Activating Ed Discussion
• Downloading Ed Discussion onto your Mobile Device
• Additional Resources

What Is Ed Discussion? 

Ed Discussion is an asynchronous discussion tool that provides a platform for students and instructors to interact through threaded discussions. Students can answer one another's questions, work on and run code together, embed video, annotate images, and share documents.

With Ed Discussion, an instructor can endorse student responses. Students can like one another's posts, post anonymously, and receive instructor feedback all in one place.

Ed Discussion's features foster community and peer learning. Additionally, students may opt to use Ed Discussion to ask questions, which could reduce emails to the instructor.

Ed Discussion is highly customizable, with categories for certain questions or threads and an easy-to-use search and filter tool.

Activating Ed Discussion

• Wait to "Activate" Ed Discussion until the first day of class when students can access the published course site.If an instructor activates Ed Discussion earlier, an email is sent to students alerting them that they are enrolled in Ed Discussion. Students then try to access the course, which may not be published yet. This leads to confusion for students.
  • Please note: Instructors are able to edit categories and additional settings in Ed Discussion before the course begins without needing the "activate" button. 

Downloading Ed Discussion onto your Mobile Device

• Please follow the steps listed on Penn's InfoCanvas Ed Discussion page for instructions on how to download the app and enable push notifications.

Additional Resources

• The attached "Quick Start Guide" gives a great preview of Ed Discussion and how threads will appear. 
• For more helpful guides, please log in to Ed Discussion by going to https://edstem.org, select your region, and then Help with Using Ed Discussion. 
• If you are already at the Ed Discussion Dashboard, you can click on the person icon found in the upper right-hand side of the screen and then use the dropdown menu to select "Help."

• The Getting Started in Ed Discussion Guide (Cornell University) gives step-by-step instructions on using Ed Discussion, including information on how to use special features (e.g., polling). 

Please reach out to online-Learning-help@sas.upenn.edu if you have questions.