Hi there! Thanks for inviting me, Steve. We use Quick Topic to post the 5th grade teacher's Problem of the Week. Then the kids have a week to solve it, to respond to other's responses, to try again. They must show how they worked it out, also.
I think our message board is working out very well. The kids are enjoying it. We finally got the rules down about appropriateness of using such a thing...like, it isn't for personal messages!
The teacher is quite happy with it! Now if I could only teach the cyberphobe how to erase the board for the next week we would be all set!!