Email, threaded conferencing, and the World Wide Web are a suite of tools that can mitigate physical disconnections and strengthen intellectual ones among groups sharing a common interest but lacking a common space or time in which to share ideas around their common interest. Email supports individual to individual and individual to group interaction. Threaded conferencing supports individual to group interactions. Participants can add new topics to the discussion agenda, or they can respond to already existing topics. What sets threaded conferencing apart from email is the capacity for threaded conferences to provide an ongoing account of the discussion on the same display.
Readers can scroll through a discussion that is tantamount to a transcript.
Though threaded conferencing is an older telecommunications technology, it's recent development as a Web resource has made it a readily accessible tool to document and a context in which to facilitate discussion about complex topics because of their emotional or cultural value. The purpose of interactivities.org is to utilize the technology of Web-based threaded conferencing to provide a virtual meeting space where communities of educators can meet asynchronously, at their convenience, and in addition to face to face meetings, to discuss issues related to their work. They can accomplish this from the comfort of their desktop computer wherever it may be, and at whatever time is convenient.