Key Questions for Working with Online Communications Tools

Nancy Kaplan

University of Baltimore, School of Communications Design

The Communications Environment

1. What are some salient differences between discussions in a classroom and discussions online?Ý Between work presented on paper (in books, in essays students author) and work presented electronically? Between telephone conversations and computer-mediated conversations?

2. What are some salient differences between collaborative work carried out in face-to-face meetings and collaborative work mediated by computers and networks? Consider social markers, such as status, as well as social needs, such as commitment and support, tolerance of differences in ideas and strategies, finding consensus, and so on.

3. What are the tools for computer mediated communications?Ý How do they differ from each other?

a. email

b. listserv email

c. bulletin board or threaded discussion

d. chat

e. MUDs/MOOs

4. In what ways do their differences make a difference in teaching and learning strategies?

a. time to accomplish a task

b. intervals between tasks, turns

c. granularity

d. interruptibility

e. representation of the conversation and its dynamics

The Teaching/Learning Environment

1. What are we using online communications to accomplish?Ý Are these goals derived from traditional classroom expectations?Ý If so, how might they need to be modified?Ý If so, what aspects of the new communications environment are we not taking full advantage of?

2. The research literature on online communications focuses primarily on organizational communications practices in business settings or on the formation of virtual communities.Ý What can that literature help us understand about online communications in educational settings?

a. what are some salient differences between business organiztions, virtual communities and classroom ìcommunitiesî?

b. what characteristics of online communications might apply equally well to all three and what might differentiate educational settings from the other two arenas?

c. what additional factors shape educational goals and processes that we might have to consider in predicting and understanding online behaviors?

Some General Characteristics of Online Communication

1. To varying degrees, ephemera (oral events) become persistent.

2. To varying degrees, persistence means participants can retrieve and review ìconversations.î

3. The constraints built into various software configurations coupled with the ìrulesî governing behavior tend to redistribute authority, expertise, and social commitments.

4. Online communications that persist and that are not anonymous can be evaluated quantitatively as well as quantitatively.

5. Decreases in social cues lead to decreased inhibitions.

Reconceiving the Teacher's Role

1. How we initiate and sustain discussion

2. How we assign work to groups and then monitor the progress of that work

3. How we guide discussions and/or group work

4. How we manage our time and intellectual resources

Reconceiving the Student's Role

1. How our behaviors and our technologies interact with years of acculturation into traditional student roles and behaviors

2. How they and we renegotiate the boundary between individual achievement and group work and cohesion

3. How we encourage decorous behavior and discourage all the various disinhibited behaviors that are counterproductive for our purposes

4. How we understand or imagine the student's environment, and its constraints, when she is "in class" or doing the work of the course

Some General Suggestions for Faculty Using Online Communications to Augment or to Replace Traditional Classroom Interactions:

1. Establish and publish iron-clad rules about the privacy and the security of the system you will be using.

2. Clearly describe the viewpoint the software affords the instructor:Ý what can be monitored, counted, evaluated ìby the system,î and so forth.Ý Make sure students know whether and to what extent the teacherís position in the electronic environment is a privileged one.

3. Establish and publish clear expectations for participation and for grading the activity.

4. Establish the teacherís role in the discussion, both by statements of intent and by behavior.

5. Acknowledge and work to overcome some of the issues around trust and commitment online environments typically produce.

A Few Resources:

1.ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ Journal of Computer Mediated Communications

http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/jcmcindex.html

2.ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ Journal of Interactive Media in Education Ý

http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/

3.ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia

http://www.aace.org/pubs/jemh/

4.ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ Distance Education Online Symposium (DEOS-L)

http://www.ed.psu.edu/ACSDE/deos/deos.asp

DEOS-L listserv postings

http://www.wested.org/hyper-discussions/deos-fwl/

5.ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ A Study Guide for Distance Ed (Moore and Kearsley, 1997)

http://www.hfni.gsehd.gwu.edu/~etl/deguide.html

6. University of Colorado School of Education's Distance Education Resource Guide

http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/distance.html