Fourth frame forums: interactive comics for collaborative learning

In this paper, we describe Fourth Frame Forums, an application that combines traditional four-frame comic strips with online webbased discussion forums. In this application, users are presented with a four-frame comic strip where the last dialogue balloon of the fourth frame is left blank. By typing a statement into this dialogue balloon, the user creates a new discussion thread in the forum, where the user’s dialogue choice can be critiqued and discussed by other users of the forum. We argue that Fourth Frame Forums provide an elegant and cost-effective solution for online education and training environments for communities of learners. We provide examples from the domain of US Army leadership development, and compare Fourth Frame Forums to alternative methods of story-directed simulation and training. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.4.3 [INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS]: Communications applications – bulletin boards General Terms Human Factors. Keywords Discussion forums, ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: MM
• Authors: Andrew S. Gordon
• Keywords: Dialogue Balloon, Four-frame Comic Strip, Fourth Frame Forums, MM 2006