It has been a bit of a frustrating week with a lot of time spent on trying to get my computer up to speed in preparation for the more challenging activites ahead. Things are much improved but I still find the load time for the discussion board windows almost prohibitively slow. The time it takes to open a window, read a post, open a reply, respond and post the response has meant I haven't been able to post as much as I would have liked. I also find the transition from my own board format to this bulletin board format rather hard. But I will reflect on that in another post.
Here I will summarise the things I have learnt from a week exploring the dark side (along with anything else I found interesting).
The choice of labelling personas let us to initially 'critique' people until we realised that we can't extrapolate an entire personality from the summary of one incident (which is probably more than we would get as tutors if we received a complaint). If we have to make 'judgements' (or at least a judgement call) it is aways better to criticise the behaviour rather than the person.
It is also good to bear in mind that behviour-based stereotypes are just as harmful as person-based ones. So if a person is lurking it could mean they are lazy, or shy or it could be that they are reading posts thinking "yeah, that is exactly what I think, I can hardly repeat it though" or "damn that is exactly what I was going to say". From my own experience with this activity if you don't want to look like an idler strike early, and strike hard!
Netiquette guidelines are essential, especially for people unused to an online learning environment, however you can't advise for every situation so the guidelines should serve to make people comfortable enough to survive the initial onslaught whereby they will gain enough familiarity to make their own choices on how to respond.
Overuse of jargon and acronyms is annoying and exclusive even if you know what they mean.
The purpose of the online discussion is presumably to build community and so the social aspect is just as important as the academic. Therefore every VLE (virtual learning environment) should have a VCE (virtual chilling environment) just as every university campus has a bar. People just need to be told (and reminded) what kind of chat is appropriate in each location.
There is nothing wrong with talking about cats.
Not all university campuses actually have bars. Those in Saudi don't... which reminds me: remind your learners that online learning implies the possibility of richer cultural diversity. Different cultures have different communicative norms and one man's perky challenge might be another's aggressive flame.
To feel loved and included you need to have your posts replied to promptly. By your tutor if necessary, though this is a bit like getting a valentine's card from your mum - heartwarming but not really the point. People should be encouraged to reply to each other just as much as they are encouraged to make thoughtful independant posts.
People are different, they post in different ways... some people are actually annoying - we should embrace that, especially if they have paid for the privilege of being annoying. They may still have something they can teach us.
It took me about a year of regular reading and sporadic posting to get really comfortable with discussing issues online.
Some tutors will naturally be more interventionist and others will be laissez faire. Ideally there should be a balance. If, as institutions, we can't afford to screen out students for the right virtual fit, we can't afford NOT to screen our staff.
We shouldn't behave differently online as we do f2f. We can't afford to give up on humour just because it is hard to translate. If someone is being cheeky, we can't let it slide just because we can't communicate our unease with body language. But we do have to make sure our emotions and subtle thoughtfulness is transcribed into text. Learning how to do this takes time, and even when we know, we sometimes forget - especially if we are rushing.
Anyway, today one of my cats went missing. We tore the house apart looking for her for an hour before my boyfriend found her nonchalently sucking spiders under the stairs. She looked at us as if to say, what IS all the noise about? And was coaxed out by the offer of dog biscuits (which she prefers to the cat variety). Cats eh?
Comments
Hi Tracy
Firstly, I love the graphic! R-o-t-f-l. J
Secondly, are the technological problems all at your end? They may not be. Have you contacted Jen Ross, our Technical Coordinator? (jen.ross@ed.ac.uk). Please do so. Technological inconveniences are a lot more than inconvenient when there’s learning to be done!
Thirdly, on a somewhat disturbing note, your post did not come through my rss feed – fortunately, I was doing a “sweep” of the blogs. So if for some reason I don’t respond to your next post with a couple of days, let me know – the same problem may have occurred again. (grr).
And now to your reflections… J
“if you don't want to look like an idler strike early, and strike hard!”
A very sound suggestion for a learner. But what would you do as the tutor? In a class this size, 30 people, not everyone can strike early and hard. What advice would you give the late student?
“…the guidelines should serve to make people comfortable enough to survive the initial onslaught whereby they will gain enough familiarity to make their own choices on how to respond.”
This is a great insight Tracy, as it is easy to assume the guidelines are enough, or that they can rigidly set in stone. Flexibility is key. What can be done, over time, to reiterate, reinforce or adapt guidelines? How important is group ownership of these guidelines?
“The purpose of the online discussion is presumably to build community and so the social aspect is just as important as the academic.
Why “presumably”? Do you think the social aspect is important?
What do you mean by community? I’ve been recommending this site to a few folk this week, you might find it useful too – http://www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm
Getting replies “By your tutor if necessary, though this is a bit like getting a valentine's card from your mum” - J “People should be encouraged to reply to each other just as much as they are encouraged to make thoughtful independant posts”
Another great point – but how? This ties to your next point:
“… we do have to make sure our emotions and subtle thoughtfulness is transcribed into text. Learning how to do this takes time, and even when we know, we sometimes forget - especially if we are rushing.”
Again, a great point, but also difficult to achieve.
I’m sure you’ll have more on these ideas as week 3 gets underway.
Cheers
C.
p.s. Can we have your cat? My housemate is terrified of spiders and I am getting worn out fishing all the autumnal refugees out of her way!
I was just about to ask for a loan of the cat. Spiders keep chasing me! People who say that spiders are more scared of you than you are of them, are ohhh so wrong. There is evil there.
Anyway, just wanted to comment on this:
"we do have to make sure our emotions and subtle thoughtfulness is transcribed into text."
Because you said very eloquently what I was thinking, and this appears have happened a few times now...
I think that getting yourself, your personality and your opinions across in written form is more natural to some people than others (or maybe just seems that way) and this is definitely a skill: one that can be learned, of course.
Assuming that it comes naturally, or that people who do not communicate well are rude can be quite damaging. Although, some people are just rude, obv.