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
Cindy Xin
Posts made by Cindy Xin
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
Andrew, you raise very important points regarding faculty involvement. This forum is meant to involve all stakeholders in higher ed, especially the practitioners, as the name of the SCoPE (P for practice) indicates. The voices of the faculty members need to be heard and they must speak up. Sylvia and Liz are trying hard to get faculty to participate. It is wonderful to see engagement from professors like you who have been actively involved in online education since its early days. Democratic participation from all actors definitely makes this forum more meaningful for everyone.
I started to reply Dan's postings in the other thread two nights ago. I had to force myself to stop when I realized that it was 2:00 in the morning. I seem to get sucked in by the discussions at SCoPE. I have to be careful so I have enough energy to keep my day job.
OK, back to the topic. I sang my praises for the freedom, innovations, and the leverage power open source has to offer. Now I want to come back to Dan's concern over Moodle's capability of enterprise systems integration and scalability. These are very legitimate concerns. Moodle offers excellent adaptability when it comes to teaching and learning and capability for developing new tools. I think this is a point most people agree with. However, I have learned that this very strength is also its weakness when it comes to enterprise integration and scalability from sources outside of this discussion. Now I've heard Dan saying this here too. To be fair, the Moodle community is trying hard and has done quite a bit to address the issues. However, there are still real concerns.
About Moodle's scalability, there is a very good thread of discussion at moodle.org. It seems to me, they are confident that Moodle can support tens of thousands of users. If I remember correctly, the largest installation known today supports around 40,000 users. I?d appreciate it if someone can verify this for me. However, there is the question whether it can support hundreds of thousands of users. Dan, you say you are concerned with its quiz/test environment, both its security and its scalability. I'd go to moodle.org and ask this question there directly. If you get an answer, share with us here.
About Moodle?s capability for enterprise systems integration, I don't know how much has been done to address the related issues. I haven't checked the Moodle.org forum to see what kind of discussions is available. It'd be worth a try.
Now back to the more general level. I mentioned the education reflected architecture. Michael Feldstein argues that an education reflected architecture should have a user-facing layer that optimizes easy tinkering, and a developer-facing layer that allows easy integration and scalability. Can Moodle's architecture be evolved to offer not just the user-facing layer but the developer-facing layer too? Can WebCT/BB be? Who is likely to do it in the long run? These are some of my genuine questions.
OK, back to the topic. I sang my praises for the freedom, innovations, and the leverage power open source has to offer. Now I want to come back to Dan's concern over Moodle's capability of enterprise systems integration and scalability. These are very legitimate concerns. Moodle offers excellent adaptability when it comes to teaching and learning and capability for developing new tools. I think this is a point most people agree with. However, I have learned that this very strength is also its weakness when it comes to enterprise integration and scalability from sources outside of this discussion. Now I've heard Dan saying this here too. To be fair, the Moodle community is trying hard and has done quite a bit to address the issues. However, there are still real concerns.
About Moodle's scalability, there is a very good thread of discussion at moodle.org. It seems to me, they are confident that Moodle can support tens of thousands of users. If I remember correctly, the largest installation known today supports around 40,000 users. I?d appreciate it if someone can verify this for me. However, there is the question whether it can support hundreds of thousands of users. Dan, you say you are concerned with its quiz/test environment, both its security and its scalability. I'd go to moodle.org and ask this question there directly. If you get an answer, share with us here.
About Moodle?s capability for enterprise systems integration, I don't know how much has been done to address the related issues. I haven't checked the Moodle.org forum to see what kind of discussions is available. It'd be worth a try.
Now back to the more general level. I mentioned the education reflected architecture. Michael Feldstein argues that an education reflected architecture should have a user-facing layer that optimizes easy tinkering, and a developer-facing layer that allows easy integration and scalability. Can Moodle's architecture be evolved to offer not just the user-facing layer but the developer-facing layer too? Can WebCT/BB be? Who is likely to do it in the long run? These are some of my genuine questions.
Sylvia said,
That's it. Why do we have to choose one over the other? As Dan also mentioned repeatedly one size does not fit all. It is not only that one LMS does not fit all institution, but also one LMS does not fit for all teaching and learning needs even within an institution. These all sound very obvious, but still somehow we get stuck in the mentality that we can only choose one system and one system only. The thing is that the teachers and students wouldn't allow to be forced forever if you choose for them. They will find their own way sooner or later to get around the problems (both technology and management related problems) and get to their solutions. Instead of fighting against it, an institution is wiser to find ways to facilitate and help them. After all, they are the people the institution supposes to serve? However, of course, there is cost associated with anything we choose to do or don't do. An institution can't support everything and anything anyone requests. A reasonable approach is perhaps to always keep its mind open. If it can't jump in right away and give full support, at least listen to its professors and students, watch what they do, and find out what others are doing outside the institution. And perhaps there will be a time when the reason to give the needed support is obvious.
Take SFU for an example. We have WebCT supported university wide. The Chemistry Dept used an open source learning content management and assessment system called LON-CAPA first in a single course in fall 2001. By 2005, the enrollments in LON-CAPA have grown to such an extent that our central Academic Computing Services unit started to house and maintain the servers and provide implementation support for it. I say, good for SFU!
So what's the lesson learned here? Never under estimate your professors and students. Think along with them. The LON-CAPA story could happen to SFU again. And it could happen to any other institution too.
The merger news continues to spark discussions everywhere, and has certainly become a catalyst for rethinking the way we do things. So many institutions are reviewing their choices for learning management systems, but the focus is still mostly on one system versus another. Do we need to completely bust out of this way of thinking?
That's it. Why do we have to choose one over the other? As Dan also mentioned repeatedly one size does not fit all. It is not only that one LMS does not fit all institution, but also one LMS does not fit for all teaching and learning needs even within an institution. These all sound very obvious, but still somehow we get stuck in the mentality that we can only choose one system and one system only. The thing is that the teachers and students wouldn't allow to be forced forever if you choose for them. They will find their own way sooner or later to get around the problems (both technology and management related problems) and get to their solutions. Instead of fighting against it, an institution is wiser to find ways to facilitate and help them. After all, they are the people the institution supposes to serve? However, of course, there is cost associated with anything we choose to do or don't do. An institution can't support everything and anything anyone requests. A reasonable approach is perhaps to always keep its mind open. If it can't jump in right away and give full support, at least listen to its professors and students, watch what they do, and find out what others are doing outside the institution. And perhaps there will be a time when the reason to give the needed support is obvious.
Take SFU for an example. We have WebCT supported university wide. The Chemistry Dept used an open source learning content management and assessment system called LON-CAPA first in a single course in fall 2001. By 2005, the enrollments in LON-CAPA have grown to such an extent that our central Academic Computing Services unit started to house and maintain the servers and provide implementation support for it. I say, good for SFU!
So what's the lesson learned here? Never under estimate your professors and students. Think along with them. The LON-CAPA story could happen to SFU again. And it could happen to any other institution too.