Discussion

My recommended tool for course discussion is Piazza.

I have, in the past, used Slack for course communication as well. Slack has the advantage of being real-life feeling as well as being the communication tool of choice for many data science teams. However it doesn’t work well for lasting class discussions as threading and searchability are poor. Additionally, the instructor does not have the option to edit student questions, which can be frustrating if they have not formatted their code appropriately. Similar tools like Discord and MS Teams have similar advantages when it comes to real-life discussions and similar disadvantages when it comes to threading and searchability.

Other options are GitHub issues and GitHub Discussions, especially for courses using version control.