This refers more to education in general, both face-to-face and online contexts and I must admit I got sidetracked while researching this topic but being a teacher myself and currently working in a sort of assessment-obsessed environment I couldn’t resist the temptation of writing more on assessment. So here you go:

ON WORKING TOGETHER (ONLINE)

There is no doubt that group work might be beneficial to learning - it is more student-centred, promotes more self-directed learning and social construction of knowledge. In more practical terms it helps students develop a range of important skills, including problem-solving, communication, leadership, collaboration and decision-making, all of them being important personal and professional assets sought by prospective employers. However, some groups prove to be dysfunctional, mostly due to the so-called ‘lone wolves’ or the phenomenon of social loafing.

Lone wolves are primarily interested in achieving their own goals while social loafing can be defined as little or lack of activity on the part of a group member who ‘shirks their obligations in the hope of benefitting from the work of others’ (Dommeyer, 2007:175). If the loafer or the free rider manages to slip unnoticed through the system they receive the same mark as the rest of their more industrious group members, which seems to be the most common reason for students’ concern, dissatisfaction and complaints (Aggarval & O’Brien, 2008; Kennedy, 2006).

Both these dysfunctionalities are likely to occur in face-to-face and online settings alike but perhaps they are more common in the latter due to lack of bodily presence and issues around community building? Besides Hron and Friedrich (2003) claim that due to its characteristics, online discussions (and I dare to speculate that by extension probably  any form of online communication) might pose a number of problems, among others difficulty maintaining topic coherence and understanding the context of a message, which could instigate a number of difficulties in group activities.

For instance, based on my own experience of setting up group discussions within a virtual learning environment (Moodle), students often contribute a single post and rest on their laurels, satisfied that they have completed the task. There is usually very little or no interactive value in the post, e.g. a question or a challenging comment. When I run the activity report I often find out there is one post per student – is that a discussion or rather a series of minipresentations – I ask myself.

Such eventualities should be borne in mind while creating the tasks and perhaps more guidance in ‘global learning methods for organising group work, behaviour rules for structuring dialogues, so-called co-operation scripts’ (Hron & Friedrich, 2003: 73) should be offered. Introducing peer evaluations during the process of group work or final peer assessment could also reduce the incidence of loafing (Aggarval & O’Brien, 2008; Pond et al, 2007).

ON PEER ASSESSMENT (ONLINE)

This  idea of peer assessment, as you remarked in your comment, Clara, is however both compelling and problematic.

To start with, there are obvious benefits to introducing peer assessment, such as increased motivation, engagement and accountability (Falchikov, 2005). To illustrate this, in a piece of research carried out by Bouchoucha & Woznak (2010) the engagement and interaction in an online group discussion increased upon introducing peer assessment from 1.4 to 3.6 posts per person in a single discussion. Other potential advantages include facilitation of deeper understanding of the subject matter and the student’s own achievement (Bloxham & Boyd, 2007).

Besides, in a situation where the group project entails other communication media, beyond the tutor’s control, let’s say emails, conversations on the phone or skype, chat or texts, the tutor is not really in the position to gain a good insight into the group dynamics and fabric and thus cannot make a fair judgement. The only people who are capable of assessing their own and others’ relative contributions are the students themselves (Race, 2001) but the question arises whether they are able to do so fairly and reliably.

ON PROBLEMS RELATED TO PEER ASSESSMENT

According to the reading I did on the subject, it seems there is some discrepancy in the views in that respect from quite favourable findings that students grade accurately and consistently (Marcoulides & Simkin, 1995), through stating that they mark with a slight bias to over-mark (Boud & Holmes, 1995) or under-mark (Hamer et al, 2009), to discovering that the correlation between the students’ and tutors’ marks tends to be restricted to a holistic judgement, based on well-understood criteria (Falchikov & Goldfinch, 2000). I guess these might be even more conflicting if a more thorough comparison is carried out across departments and faculties with their different grading scales, approaches and the nature of their typical assignments. If you think further of interdisciplinary degrees or post-grad degrees with students from different backgrounds, humanities and sciences, and you add online on top of that, the issue might get even more muddled (illustrated by your comment).

ON POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Ways of addressing the problem include involving students in the process of creating the peer assessment instrument. For example, they could select from a pre-prepared bank of questions or criteria using various scoring scales (Nicol & Milligan, 2006); alternatively they could even formulate the criteria themselves. Theoretically, in such a situation, they should be able to understand them inside out and allocate a fair mark. However, even this might be problematic as students might have varying notions as to what particular terms stand for or how achieving a given criterion translates into a particular grade. This might result in the students either over or under-marking. Clarity of the rubrics might be tested by means of a calibration process prior to launching the group project. In order to further reduce this stringency or leniency effect, each student could be assessed by all the other group members (multiple peer assessment) and the assessors could be encouraged to write more detailed comments to justify their scoring.

Hmm, it all sounds ideal but I guess in terms of preparation (creating criteria, running assessment trials) as well as implementation (students filling in the assessment forms and tutors reading them) might prove time-consuming and thus adding to the workload of everybody in question. It is also unclear to what extent the peers’ mark should influence the final grade and how the calculation should be performed.

I’d be quite interested in doing more about this as the issues of peer/self-review and assessment have been on my mind for some time now. Basically, I’d like to encourage more reflection on part of my students, deeper thinking on their performance, goals, abilities and skills. The issue of formative peer assessment springs to mind too (as suggested in the article by Aggorval and O’Brien (2009) it is multiple peer evaluations that best prevent social loafing). Something perhaps to ponder on the assessment module in the future?

 

This post continues a theme from the second entry: Remember the Human

 

One of the stories from week one described a situation in which a wheelchair user participated in an online course – an example of inclusion on a logistical level where online creates a convenient and easily accessible environment for learners with disabilities. However, as I mentioned in the previous posting, online might offer inclusion in other respects too. In that particular case the disabled student chose to keep their health condition secret. That could have been dictated by many motives, for instance their unwillingness to manifest their otherness and so not to get ‘preferential’ treatment (being it true or fake sympathy or even harassment – hence inverted commas – or a degree of favouritism in assessment – ‘She is scraping through but since she is disabled and so making an extra effort to continue her education, let’s reward her with a higher mark) or the fact that they thought it was irrelevant in the given circumstances. Whatever the reason, the person did not experience any exclusion which could have otherwise occurred, became an integral part of the group and only at the in an off-hand remark revealed the actual state of things.

 

Clara, you pointed out in your comment that this might be just illusion of receiving equal treatment and so the need to hide a part of oneself might be considered exclusionary. I agree you can’t be certain whether the environment is inclusive or exclusive unless you test the waters by simply revealing who you really are and the others’ gut reaction might provide the proof of the pudding (I’m not sure though what counts as a gut reaction online and how you measure it!) However, I think it all comes down to how the ‘other’ person perceives themselves. If the self-perception is linked with feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, then the main reason for withholding the truth might be fear and thus could count as exclusionary. If there is acceptance of the condition in the person and they simply opt out because they think it’s their private matter and it’s not pertinent to the course (but if asked, they would admit it), then it’s more inclusive. I think what I wanted to stress in my previous post is that the online might offer more control over private information to learners with disabilities or belonging to minorities (sexual, racial, cultural, religious) who could be subjected to discriminatory behaviour and simply denied access to the group on the grounds that they are transsexual, a Gypsy, an orthodox Muslim or Palestinian. They identify themselves to others, thus shaping the way the others can interpret them (‘if the [visual] cues are not discussed, pragmatically they do not “exist;” textualisation constitutes “reality”’ [Lai & Ball, 2004: 24]). Thanks to that they can promote themselves as individuals without being unjustly associated with  collective stereotypes that every Palestinian is a terrorist.

 

I think the idea of inclusion and exclusion might have some connection with how the participant sees themselves, especially in relation to other people. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs the needs of love/belonging (feeling of acceptance  by the community)  and esteem (being valued and respected by others) constitute two of the 4 basic deficiency needs, coming right after physiological and safety belonging needs. If these needs are not satisfied, a person might experience feelings of social anxiety and develop notions of low self-esteem and inferiority, which in extreme cases might lead to depression.

 

Levy (1998:34) pointed out that the boundaries between the private and the public blur online. Once I log into the course VLE, the classroom and my own cosy room penetrate each other. For this reason, it is often claimed that shy, less confident students often feel empowered by the online medium and contribute more when seated within their comfort zone than in an actual face-to-face classroom ([Faculty Focus, 2010] but I need to find more references). By more active participation they might start blossoming, gelling with the rest of the group,  building relationships and gaining respect of the others, thus satisfying their needs of belonging, a certain sign of online being inclusive.

However, and this is me thinking aloud, it might also happen that some hypersensitive and more vulnerable individuals might experience enhanced insecurity and anxiety, and in their fear of losing face, they might post nothing or very little to the forum. As it becomes increasingly more difficult to contribute, they might fade into oblivion (especially on big courses, self-study courses, or courses where participation is not part of assessment). In such a situation in order defend themselves and to pre-empt any imagined rejection they might project feelings of dislike, or even hostility onto their actually neutral coursemates. By doing so they exclude themselves from the group, in extreme cases spiraling downwards to depression.

 

Online experiences can shape the way we perceive ourselves, can’t they? An example (although this is personal it’s just an observation, I was just analyzing my thoughts and feelings): I posted my introduction to the forum, nothing fancy but that’s me (or how I see myself), no frills, straightforward. No response from anybody and a thought creeps into my mind: quite pejorative self-assessment fed by feelings of hurt, exaggerated by other circumstances having nothing to do with the course. A moment of reflection and I slowly regain the grasp of the reality (accompanied, however, by a shrug of shoulders). Then somebody replied, so far it seems the only fellow student I established some communication with. I don’t feel part of the group … Self-exclusion but I’m ok with it. How many students do a similar thing, how many students do it and are ok? How many do it and suffer in silence? And what should a tutor do? Fish them out and save (but the course is not a psychotherapy session), reason with them (it’s good for their learning to participate and it strengthens the fabric of the course and network) or maybe  leave them in peace (they are adults after all and so should know themselves what’s best, they are responsible for their actions).

 

I wrote in the previous posting that the basic principle of online communication is to remember the human, which means consideration for other online users.

Simple and basic as it is, it might seem difficult to implement in online settings, especially in asynchronous ones where we often don’t see the person at the receiving end of the message. Considering the diversity of online communication tools (both synchronous and asynchronous), I wonder if some of them are more successful in helping us comply with the rule. For example,  using videoconferencing should theoretically help us be more human than, let’s say, on an anonymous discussion forum (like the one found in online versions of tabloids where people regularly slag others off for trivial things like an unfetching hat or crazy haircut). And how about instant messenger type of communication tools, including mobile phones,  which sometimes might fall somewhere in between synchronous and asynchronous modes of communication. Due to their frequently limited size (text messages, direct messaging on twitter), users often have to take shortcuts when expressing their views. There is also a question of emotional closeness to the recipient; for example mobile phone messages tend to be more personal so the ‘humanness’ index should be higher. Twitter  is a bit more controversial, especially when you think of its use as a back channel where somebody can be heckled, or tweckled! See Steve Wheeler's post on Weapon of Mass Destruction. Strangely enough this happens when you actually see the person but this sadly doesn't prevent you from forgetting the human!

 

More loose thoughts related to entry two to follow.

 

Even when plunging into the ‘black hole’ of the online, the basic rule of thumb to follow is the same as offline,  to remember the human (from an article on netiquette). Despite the tech element, it is still all about interaction and building relationships. Transferred into the educational context, the classroom might be swapped for a VLE, accessible at any time and place, but technology should not supersede pedagogy. And the learning theories that I have in mind here are blend of humanistic approaches and social constructivism, a balance of individualism and collaboration.

 

For that to work, the students need to be instructed what they are using the technology for and what is expected of them in terms of input (content plus assessment criteria) if they are to treat the online component seriously and not as a fancy (and probably clumsy) add-on. The purpose of different tools and choice of online activities should also be made clear so that students do not develop wrong expectation. This would refer especially to self-study courses where the student is left altogether to their own devices. To illustrate what I mean, I will refer to the first story ‘The black hole’. There is perhaps a natural tendency for people to moan and groan or exchange views on topics unrelated to the course but that can be done on a separate, non-learning, forum, e.g. ‘virtual cafe’ and the purpose of such a forum should be clearly spelt out and differentiated from that of learning forums and this is what happened in the story about ‘the black hole’. The message got ignored, sucked into a vacuum, leaving the student distressed and disappointed. It’s possible, however, that it was the course design that was to blame rather than the self-absorbed cat-loving fellow students. Namely, the design could be summarized as ‘laissez faire’, the students were let to get on and in doing so the cat group opted not to respond to the other student’s call for help. For obvious reasons (age, different outlook and priorities) she hadn’t engaged in interaction with them and so she might have been perceived as an outsider and intruder, somebody they did not care about.

 

To develop a sense of community and add dynamics to the course, many online courses introduce groupwork. Things might go wrong though, especially when individuals present different views on how to go about the task. In order to facilitate smooth collaboration and get students more involved and perhaps become watchdogs themselves, a working agreement could be devised at first which could describe in detail how they are going to collaborate and behave towards each other. The students could regularly reflect on the effectiveness of the agreement, refining it if need be. 

 

Creating rubrics specific to groupwork could perhaps encourage more active participation from quieter or idler students. It is true that, similarly to a traditional classroom, there will be an array of learning styles on an online course, with some students sharing their ideas publicly more readily while the more reflective types might lurk in the shadows of online back channels but certain mechanisms need to be put in place which will squeeze the minimum from the latter, especially in the case of groupwork. Assigning a leading role to a quieter student, putting them in a position of responsibility might spur more activity on their part too. Collaboration could also be subject to anonymous peer assessment, something one presenter in the workshop I recently went to  had introduced on their course. What is more, the peer assessment could influence the final mark, which kept all the potential idlers on their toes!

 

Since the online overly relies on the written word, there is much more permanency. Once you write something on an online forum, it's frozen there and irremovable (unless there is a good reason to take it off, e.g. abuse, indecency, etc.). So, greater care needs to be taken when posting messages but, on the other hand, there needs to be more forgiving  of other people's mistakes, being it spelling, grammar, a silly question or a daft contribution. Sometimes, the computer screen creates a buffer or a distance; you cannot see the recipient, their face or gestures, you deal with lone words, making the one who typed them become somehow disembodied and dehumanised. This might induce more assertiveness in you, make you feel more vociferous and bold in your opinions, putting forward criticisms. I think it's always worth asking yourself a simple question ‘Would I say something like this to the person face-to-face?’ (the flamer story).

 

The online might exert an interesting influence on how people present themselves and how much of personal info they decide to disclose, and how much of it they tamper with, embellish, distort and how fast they allow the truths to trickle into the open. This is particularly interesting in the case of people who are perceived as 'different' by the society at large, for example due to their disability or people who have experienced some misfortune in their life. In order to receive equal treatment, some of them will choose to hide the fact of their otherness. This way the online might promote inclusion more effectively than face-to-face.

 

 

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of flow, the process through which we are going while trying to achieve our goals is more enriching than the success of attaining them at the end. This can be explained by the sense of enjoyment one derives from overcoming obstacles on the way, often through trial and error, momentarily groping in the dark in order to be enlightened in the most unexpected moment, forming hypotheses, scrutinising them to either refine them or refute them. It is these little successes (and likewise failures) that provide a sense of fulfillment, progress and flow.

I am now embarking on a new journey and although the final destination seems to be clear – completion of the introductory module of the post-grad course in e-learning, the adventures on the way seem equally, if not even more, enticing. As a true traveller, I cannot NOT keep a log of events – let it be ICTraveBlogue (50% after all).

LOOKING BACK & AHEAD

In order to explain how the idea of the flow applies to blogging, let me go to the roots. I’ve had a go at blogging before. While doing an online course in autumn 2008 (ICT in the Classroom), one of the tasks was to set up a blog. Mine was very impressionistic and featured a handful of stories from distant places, embellished with pictures and music. It’s still floating somewhere in the blogosphere but I’ve given up on it as I didn’t have a clear idea of what to fill it up with.

At the same time, I discovered a few blogs kept by language educators, some of them exemplary, some of them not. I also tried blogging with my learners but again due to insufficient planning, the blogs soon fell into oblivion. There’s been and still is a desire in me to blog but seeing how many people reach for this tool to share their personal or professional musings, I feel overwhelmed and somewhat reluctant to throw in my two pennyworth. Sometimes, I feel like there are too many words already produced and the blogosphere becomes a massive dump of verbal waste, creating a sort of e-pollution. Cautious and maybe overprotective of my digital identity and image, I’m slightly sceptical about blogging.

Blogging means getting enmeshed in the Web, Web 2.0 to be exact. By establishing your online presence in the blogosphere and contact with your audience you build social relationships. As in real life you look after your reputation, maintaining your online self requires careful planning and management. This is your online footprint, coded in pixels and bytes, easily replicated and reproduced elsewhere by means of pings, tweets, mentions, linkbacks. Therefore, to prevent the blog from becoming a double-edged sword, some quality-assurance formula is essential. This means determination,  an awareness of the audience, sharing interesting, thought-provoking ideas and posing good questions for the audience to ponder and finally being willing to involve in the dialogue. I am an educator in the first place, a technologist in the second so pedagogy will always come first and thus the basic questions to ask yourself before venturing into the blogosphere are 'why am I doing this and what do I want to achieve?' and 'how do I want my audience to benefit from it?', questions I keep asking myself before each face-to-face or online class.

Ideally the ideas shared with the reader should be new but these are sometimes hard to come by and perhaps require a spark of genius ;-) I much rather prefer the other route of the so-called ‘creative recombination’ which might involve the following steps (aptly described in the course on Personal Learning Environments):

·         Aggregate

·         Remix

·         Repurpose

·         Feed further

In case of this blog, the aggregation has been partly managed by my course tutors – it’s the module list of core and secondary texts. It’s also the input from fellow students in form of the discussion forums. Lastly it’s the blogs and sites on e-learning I have been following for a while, Steve Wheeler’s or George Siemens’ to name a coupls. Combined with my personal experience of being an online student and tutor, this should provide enough food for thought for this blog. By engaging with concepts pertinent to e-learning, I am hoping to increase my expertise in the field. But an additional goal is to harness the idea of blogging, dispel any sceptisism about its feasibility and instill a healthy habit of reflecting on the web reality/e-learning. This is the journey or the process I am going to take part in and hope to derive a sense of flow. This should be easier as the blog at the moment is to grow in a closed environment, a little greenhouse visited only by my tutors – less worry about my digital footprint. Another ‘bonus’ is the fact it’s subject to assessment – otherwise my procrastinating self could easily forget about the required frequency and quality of postings.

In order to do so I need a plan too. I thought I could start with setting up some basic rules by filling in this simple but imaginative worksheet from Blog of Proximal Development: