Dr. B's Blog!
Tuesday, October 16, 2001:
In response to the Kairos essay Serkan writes, “ … by creating the old space in the new medium do we attempt to bring in the same old paradigm where only certain things are possible to talk about and personal experience is usually discounted?” If the online classroom is supposed to be new and liberatory why would we want to drag in the old baggage of the traditional classroom? Should we ignore the baggage of the traditional classroom in a virtual space or does that simply make the situation more dangerous? The online classroom will automatically have some of the same problems as the traditional one. Same students, same teachers, same institutions of higher learning, same politics. So how do we make things better online? Can we make things better in VR without making them better in RL first? What about the new problems that arise with teaching online (access, level of expertise, etc.)?
Samantha Blackmon // 10/16/2001 02:43:26 PM
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In response to Cooper’s essay Kate writes, “Student self-policing is not always an immediate solution, and sometimes an immediate solution is needed.” Too true. Not only is time a factor as Kate suggests (who has time to watch a conversation go astray for 15 minutes in a 55 minute class?) but what about the damage that can be done before the self-policing kicks in? What about the gay students harmed by the homophobic statements? The Asian students harmed by the racist statement? One slur is bad enough but to let the conversation progress unchecked for any period of time makes it worse. There is always the chance (even in f2f conversations) that something harmful will be said but there are times when the instructor needs to step in and say “this is not acceptable”.
Samantha Blackmon // 10/16/2001 02:34:54 PM
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Kate asks a good question about learning/writing/tutoring communities in response to Crump’s piece on online writing centers. How do we get students to just hang out and read each others’ writing? In the case of a face to face WC we could just make it a warm and friendly place with comfy spaces and snacks (like Purdue’s) but how do we do this in a virtual space when students may be tired, in uncomfortable chairs, or dying for a snack in a “no food” lab? Perhaps we can’t have an online community without having a RL community first. If students see the benefit of working together f2f is this community more likely to flourish online?
Samantha Blackmon // 10/16/2001 02:25:10 PM
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In her post on the Kolko piece Kate latches on to the abstract representation of the body. In class we discussed how the “real” body finds its way into online representations. There are aspects of our real bodies that can’t be disguised. Linguistic markers, physical states, etc. all play a big part in how we construct ourselves online (often unintentionally) and there is nothing that we can do about it. These are things that we must take into consideration when thinking, talking, and writing about online identity and “anonymity”.
Samantha Blackmon // 10/16/2001 02:14:53 PM
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Tuesday, October 02, 2001:
Gabe writes, “I believe that there are many students out there who feel like J and me. J., as Sloane states on p. 63, finds word processing ‘impersonal,’ a hindrance to ‘thinking,’ and an ‘object that has the capacity to randomly transform his message.’ And this, obviously, is a feeling whose root is in J.'s educational and writing history. Our experiences make us wary of using the computer. But computers do have much to offer in the way of editing techniques. And most of us have already bought into the notion that computer literacy is an essential component of professional and educational success. So how do we as instructors help students trust the word processor as they trust the old pen and paper?” This is a very good question and one that we should address even if we can’t find the definitive answer. How do we get students to feel as comfortable with the computer as they already do with pen and paper? Maybe it is impossible. Maybe cognitively computers and pen and ink have different functions. Perhaps we should teach both and allow the use of both. Do students suffer when we force the use of one over the other? In J’s case yes. Does this happen in the cases of other students? (It happened with Gabe.) Maybe the key is familiarity and they only need to be shown how and to practice (and then again maybe familiarity does breed contempt).
Samantha Blackmon // 10/2/2001 09:12:34 AM
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Courtney writes, "students who are accustomed to editing as they type, may experience difficulty during in-class writing exercises in which computers remain unused. In contrast, a student who is accustomed to, and actually prefers, pen and paper as opposed to a computer may appear deficient in the process of generating ideas because just as the student J, he or she is unable to jot the ideas down in the margins because on the computer or word processor margins for scribbling notes are absent." Ah, the double edged sword. So what is the answer? Do we make computers optional at times? Do we switch between keyboard & monitor and pen & paper? Do we let the old technology fade into the background just because there is something new? Maybe the answer is to let students choose their preferred medium while still teaching them how to use the new technology.
Samantha Blackmon // 10/2/2001 09:11:52 AM
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