A Discussion Forum is an online bulletin board, where you can discuss topics with other users. You can post questions or answer questions other people have asked, or you can share ideas with other people. Generally, a forum will be designed for a particular topic or people in a similar situation, such as 3rd Grade Teachers. Your posts can be read by anyone with access to the forum.

Please note that Discussion Forums are not excluded from the public records statute.

A discussion thread is a series of messages that have been posted as replies to each other, in a chain. By reading each message in order, you can follow the conversation as it evolved. You can start a new thread by posting a message that is not a reply to an existing message.

Access to this forum is free to any user logged in to the Tennessee K12 website. We do insist that you abide by the rules and policies detailed below. You agree to these terms by registering as a Tennessee K12 website user and posting messages on these forums.

By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-orientated, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws.

No Advertising. Your forums are provided as a service to Tennessee educators. Posting to the forum in an effort to receive free advertising is not appropriate. "Advertising" includes, but is not limited to, posting a link to a commercial site that you are associated with in any way, posting a link to a site that gives you referral credits, or posting a link to any site for promotional purposes regardless of whether it is "free" or "commercial." Posts which contain advertisements will be removed from the forum, and offenders will be banned. If you have any questions, please call the ENA helpdesk at 1-888-612-2880.

No Personal Attacks. The purpose of this forum is to provide encouragement, advice, support, enjoyment, and words of wisdom. It is a safe and friendly environment in which to share thoughts and ideas. The expectation is that visitors to the forums will be both professional and respectful. It is fine to disagree with someone, but personal attacks or disrespect will not be tolerated on this forum. Messages of this type will be removed from the forum, and repeat offenders will be banned from using the forum. If you don't have something nice to say, don't say it!

Messages/Posts. ENA will reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread or message for any reason.

Although the administrators and moderators of these Forums will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages as soon as they are posted. If you find an objectionable posting, please contact the forum administrator at support@ena.com so that we may remove it as quickly as possible.

Forums are available only to users who have logged in to the Tennessee K12 website, allowing us to restrict forums to certain types of users, defined by the person who creates the forum. For example, a forum could be set up just for "Librarians in Knox County". If the forum is available to everyone, then the forum is available to all logged-in users, including students.

Please note that Discussion Forums, regardless of their restrictions on the Tennessee K12 website, are not excluded from the public records statute.

To post to a forum, select the forum from the mail list. At the bottom of the discussion is a form for you to fill in your response. Your response will be posted in chronological order. If you are trying to respond to a topic that is covered earlier in the thread, make sure that your post lists both the issue as well as your response, or determine if you need to start a new forum topic. This will help the overall flow of the thread.

Use the Search option at the top of the website to search the discussion forums. Just type your topic in the search field and then click the Search button. The results will include the top 10 results from the Discussion Forum threads, along with results from other pages and other search engines. If you want to do a more detailed search, you can then use the Advanced Search options, and search just the Discussion Forum threads by unchecking all of the other search options.

Before creating a new forum, review the forum list to make sure that you're not duplicating an existing forum. To create a new forum, select the 'Add Discussion Forum' link that is available at the top and bottom of the list of available forums. Enter a Title for the forum that is a quick description of the topics you want to cover in the forum. The Description field should elaborate on the Title. In either the Title or Description field, include what kind of people the forum is intended for. For example:

Title: Elementary School Science Lessons

Description: Forum for Teachers to discuss hands-on science lessons

Utilize the Roles and Communities options in the Forum assignment to filter the list of people who can see and post to your forum. Roles indicate a person's function or responsibility, and Communities indicate where a person works. You can limit forums to the Roles and Communities that are assigned to you. If you choose to make your forums available to everyone, then any Tennessee K12 member can view and post to the forum, including students.

Utilize the Roles and Communities options in the Forum assignment to filter the list of people who can see and post to your forum. Roles indicate a person's function or responsibility, and Communities indicate where a person works. You can limit forums to the Roles and Communities that are assigned to you. If you choose to make your forums available to everyone, then any Tennessee K12 user can view and post to the forum, including students.