Hi Everyone,
This seminar is scheduled to end as of last Sunday. However, I see interesting conversation is still going on. There is no reason to stop. We started an open ended question about advancing and supporting online dialogue. We can in fact carry it on here indefinitely. Through the course of the last three weeks, we have engaged in some rather deep conversations about the nature of the dialogue, role of leadership in dialogue, its relationship to control and to open space, the function of acknowledgment/recognition/validation in successful dialogue, the meaning of lurking/listening/peripheral participation, levels of participation and motivation, the different contexts of dialogue (social vs. educational), and finally conversation through blog.
Now I wonder how you draw an end to a conversation like this. In an open space, the conversation is over when it's over. I like this approach. Also I believe a good conversation takes on a second life even when it is over. It may morph into a different conversation; it may create new relationship between the participants; it may lead to inspiration and actions... Whatever this second life might be, I hope there is one.
And in case you ever wonder what we talked about for three weeks, we have a wiki that holds the germs coming out of this conversation.
Thank you all. Keep in touch and I hope we will meet again down the road online or offline.
Cindy
Cindy Xin
Discussions started by Cindy Xin
I was chatting with Sylvia via email yesterday about the fact that the Moodle discussion forum didn't allow one to sort all messages in a forum chronologically despite of which discussion threads they belong to. We both think the ability to sort all messages by date or reverse date is a useful feature to have because it allows one to easily read from A to Z and get a full sense of the dialogue history. It is also easier for one to read all new postings as they come in.
Sylvia tipped me on using rss to get around the above problem, which I'm using now. Now I wish I had used the rss feed for all the previous SCoPE seminars so I could read them chronologically.
I wonder what features or tools you really appreciate or would appreicate if they existed in supporting online dialogue.
Cindy
Sylvia tipped me on using rss to get around the above problem, which I'm using now. Now I wish I had used the rss feed for all the previous SCoPE seminars so I could read them chronologically.
I wonder what features or tools you really appreciate or would appreicate if they existed in supporting online dialogue.
Cindy
Derek,
I put some of the quotes and resources you mentioned in the message you just posted in our seminar wiki.
You mentioned "emergent leadership." It's an interesting concept. Can you elaborate it more either here or directly in the wiki page?
Cindy
I put some of the quotes and resources you mentioned in the message you just posted in our seminar wiki.
You mentioned "emergent leadership." It's an interesting concept. Can you elaborate it more either here or directly in the wiki page?
Cindy
In this thread, I invite you to share your favorite papers and resources on online dialogue. I have two to start with.
Andrew Feenberg is one of the pioneers of online education. In 1989, he published a paper titled “The written world: On the theory and practice of computer conferencing.” Eighteen years later, the paper is still considered by many one of the most insightful studies of computer conferencing. It explored many important aspects of online dialogue, such as facilitation, motivation, management of identity, social network, etc. that are still very much of concern and under study today. If you haven’t read this article, I highly recommend that you do. If you have, read it again. You will discover more.
The second one is a bit of self-promotion. Most recently, Andrew Feenberg and I have co-authored a paper titled “Online pedagogy: The dynamics of online discourse” published in the Journal of Distance Education (vol 21, issue 2). In this paper, we investigate what we consider four essential aspects of online educational discourse: intellectual engagement, communication and common ground, dialogue and motivation, and group dynamics and leadership. In this seminar, I hope to engage you to discuss each of the four aspects.
Cindy
Andrew Feenberg is one of the pioneers of online education. In 1989, he published a paper titled “The written world: On the theory and practice of computer conferencing.” Eighteen years later, the paper is still considered by many one of the most insightful studies of computer conferencing. It explored many important aspects of online dialogue, such as facilitation, motivation, management of identity, social network, etc. that are still very much of concern and under study today. If you haven’t read this article, I highly recommend that you do. If you have, read it again. You will discover more.
The second one is a bit of self-promotion. Most recently, Andrew Feenberg and I have co-authored a paper titled “Online pedagogy: The dynamics of online discourse” published in the Journal of Distance Education (vol 21, issue 2). In this paper, we investigate what we consider four essential aspects of online educational discourse: intellectual engagement, communication and common ground, dialogue and motivation, and group dynamics and leadership. In this seminar, I hope to engage you to discuss each of the four aspects.
Cindy
Dialogue is one of the most common and profound activities online. It is common because we do it every day through email, discussion forum, chat or any other online communication channels. It is the major way through which we interact with other people. It is profound because it is so common and because it is so essential to how we learn, understand, and grow both as an individual and as a group.
There are many ways we engage in dialogue with others online, synchronously or asynchronously. In this seminar, I’d like focus our attention specifically in asynchronous discussion forum or simply discussion forum like this one. Within this context, I hope we will collectively reflect the nature and characteristics of online dialogue. Through this reflection I also hope it will deepen our understanding and ultimately guide our online practice.
To start our conversation, I like to pose a few questions -
What do you think a successful online dialogue should be like?
How is it similar to and different from fact-to-face dialogue? And so what?
What is your past experience of success and failure, and what made it succeed or fail?
Let’s start with these few questions.
I have asked Sylvia to start a wiki page for this seminar. I invite you all to contribute to it. Through the process of this three-week dialogue, hopefully we will also produce a resource that we can use in our future online practice.
Cindy
There are many ways we engage in dialogue with others online, synchronously or asynchronously. In this seminar, I’d like focus our attention specifically in asynchronous discussion forum or simply discussion forum like this one. Within this context, I hope we will collectively reflect the nature and characteristics of online dialogue. Through this reflection I also hope it will deepen our understanding and ultimately guide our online practice.
To start our conversation, I like to pose a few questions -
What do you think a successful online dialogue should be like?
How is it similar to and different from fact-to-face dialogue? And so what?
What is your past experience of success and failure, and what made it succeed or fail?
Let’s start with these few questions.
I have asked Sylvia to start a wiki page for this seminar. I invite you all to contribute to it. Through the process of this three-week dialogue, hopefully we will also produce a resource that we can use in our future online practice.
Cindy