It's a beautiful Friday afternoon in Vancouver, BC. I find myself sitting here and replying to my own message. Why is the seminar so quiet? Is there something I should or should not have done? What can I do now to get the fire going again? I ask myself. Maybe you can help.
I realize that discussion about online dialogue can be an old hat. It's not as new and exciting as flying through Second Life or other Web 2.0 kind of buzz, but maybe there is a second life to online dialogue discussion too. After all, many of the Web 2.0 technologies are about social networking which hindges on conversation. It has to worth something to reflect upon its practice in the past 25 years or so in online education. Wouldn't you think so?
Now, I'm wondering how many bloggers feeling the same way I'm feeling now - talking to myself but hoping someone would talk back...
Cindy
Cindy Xin
Posts made by Cindy Xin
Thanks Sylvia for acknowledging the need for acknowledgment. Among all the people I know in this field, you probably have the most experience of on the subject. Monica, I do like you use the word validation. It is a form of acknowledgment but it goes a step further to say that this is why someone's contribution is valued.
I think we all have the experience of checking in a discussion forum to see whether anyone has responded to our recent posts multiple time within a day, or whenever we have a chance. This behavior can be obsessive sometimes. We are eager to see our contributions acknowledged, our ideas validated. Until that happens we would keep anticipating until we receive the recognition, or we give up hope, which can be an unfortunate and frustrating experience.
Recognition has to be made explicit and timely. To be explicit is to type it out and refer to participants' names as much as possible so they are credited publicly of their contributions. To be timely is to do it as soon as possible, so the anticipation won't turn into disappointment. This is also why things are better taken care of when this responsibility is shared among all participants. When one misses it, others can help make it up.
Also the recognition goes both ways between teacher and the students, the moderator and the participants. Teachers and moderators need confirmation too, so they know that they are on track or they need to do something to get back on track or open up new territories.
So acknowledge - let people know they are heard at least. The last thing one needs online is silence.
Cindy
I think we all have the experience of checking in a discussion forum to see whether anyone has responded to our recent posts multiple time within a day, or whenever we have a chance. This behavior can be obsessive sometimes. We are eager to see our contributions acknowledged, our ideas validated. Until that happens we would keep anticipating until we receive the recognition, or we give up hope, which can be an unfortunate and frustrating experience.
Recognition has to be made explicit and timely. To be explicit is to type it out and refer to participants' names as much as possible so they are credited publicly of their contributions. To be timely is to do it as soon as possible, so the anticipation won't turn into disappointment. This is also why things are better taken care of when this responsibility is shared among all participants. When one misses it, others can help make it up.
Also the recognition goes both ways between teacher and the students, the moderator and the participants. Teachers and moderators need confirmation too, so they know that they are on track or they need to do something to get back on track or open up new territories.
So acknowledge - let people know they are heard at least. The last thing one needs online is silence.
Cindy
Sylvia, you've offered some good tips on using Gmail and browser tabs. This is true that some of the design defects in software can somehow be compensated by ingenious practices.
Now I'm using wiki together with this discussion. I found that it'd really neat if there were a button that I can push to send any highlighted passage of text to the wiki page automatically. It'd be very similar to the annotation feature we have already in the forum. I think it's a matter of adding that button to the annotation tool. The rationale behind this idea is to collect useful materials for composing a reply/wiki page/paper without interrupting the flow of reading. How do people like this idea?
Cindy
Now I'm using wiki together with this discussion. I found that it'd really neat if there were a button that I can push to send any highlighted passage of text to the wiki page automatically. It'd be very similar to the annotation feature we have already in the forum. I think it's a matter of adding that button to the annotation tool. The rationale behind this idea is to collect useful materials for composing a reply/wiki page/paper without interrupting the flow of reading. How do people like this idea?
Cindy
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
Monica,
I think what you meant was Bruce Tuckman's (1965) 4-stage model of group development. He labelled the stages as:
More information can be found at http://www.businessballs.com/tuckmanformingstormingnormingperforming.htm1. Forming: The group comes together and gets to initially know one other and form as a group.
2. Storming: A chaotic vying for leadership and trialling of group processes
3. Norming: Eventually agreement is reached on how the group operates (norming)
4. Performing: The group practices its craft and becomes effective in meeting its objectives.
In fact, I'd like to add a fifth stage - transforming. This is when the group reaches the point being able to achieve beyond the objectives it set for itself originally, to transcend, and to reinvent itself. I think it becomes the ultimate goal of growth for the group as a whole.
Cindy