They review a homework assignment together and develop questions via e-mail to bring to the next class for discussion.
Students prepare a summary of the reading assignment and share it in a chat room or bulletin board.
Students prepare a short writing assignment over an assigned topic and send it to the class discussion list. This can also be done in groups or in pairs if you have a large class. Students can read, edit and critique the assignment. After group discussion, the responses can form the basis for a class-wide discussion. A variation on this is for students to formulate a group answer to the question, and each member explains the group's answer and reasoning to a member of another group.