Dialogue Journal Week 3 On Line Comunication & Community

Week 3 Dialogue Journal Double –Entry Notebook Observations
Online Communication & Community

Empirical evidence: notes, observations, quotations

“Parents also appreciate the discussion area as a tool for monitoring and participating in the class; they often respond to questions or post their own” (Kajder 102).

Reflections on that evidence.

This is simply a fantastic usage of a discussion board. To get parents contributing a few lines would be most teachers dream. Extending the discourse community to the parents of students is pretty ambitious but it might work on certain projects where their experience and input would be helpful to the kids. I would love to try something like this out sometime to see the results. I think if anything it would pique parental interest in their child’s schoolwork and strengthen the trialogue between teacher/student/parent. At the very least it would be worth attempting to see the responses.

Empirical evidence: notes, observations, quotations

Krause points out that her female student chose an emailing list as opposed to a blog “… because she intuitively knew that her message would actually reach the “real audience” of the class community” (8).

Reflections on that evidence.

I find it to be a bit cumbersome to read blogs. Especially if the entries are long and don’t connect to one another. For this student the email list was more direct, instant and immediate. Blog’s like Krause said “… do not foster this sort of dynamic discussion as well” (8). Like Krause I don’t completely dislike blog’s but their potential as an educational tool I think is grossly overestimated at this point in time. I’m not saying they don’t have potential but as bill Parcels used to say about potential and I’m paraphrasing “Potential means nothing until you actually achieve something”.

Empirical evidence: notes, observations, quotations

I didn’t particularly like the wiki’s when we done them in class but I have been fiddling with a test site of mine that I plan on adding to over the next few months http://bostonburn.pbwiki.com/?pwd=y8viKPR299
It’s a Jack Kerouac & The Beats appreciation site. The scroll from On the Road is coming to Lowell this summer and will be on display to the public. Kerouac is one of my favorite American writers and I love the work of the beats even though it’s under appreciated in academic circles.

Reflections on that evidence.

This is something that I would definitely see myself getting addicted to and working as a side project in my spare moments. Maybe it could have an educational purpose as well to give people a greater appreciation for “beat lit”. I just really wish any Tom Dick or Harry couldn't’t just change my wiki. There has to be some way of controlling against people messing with my wiki site. Is there?

Empirical evidence: notes, observations, quotations

The Augar, Raitman and Zhou article eased some of my fears about the security of wikis but to be honest I.T College students are going to be more serious and disciplined than high / middle school kids who live for juvenile tricks and jokes. The disclaimers and commandments remind me of Craigslist. The writers of the article mention “Because students had to login to edit the wiki, every post, or edit could be attributed to an individual student” (6). I guess all you can do is warn the kids beforehand and discipline appropriately if one of them breaks the rules. Yeah sure you will probably always get one or two rule-breakers and jokers who change posts but I think it’s worth dealing with this, because the learning opportunities for Wiki’s are substantial.

Reflections on that evidence.

I like the idea of the icebreaker exercise described in this article. Its gets the students talking outside of class and makes the classroom more comfortable when they return to it. I have noticed that students in undergraduate classes at U Mass are often reticent to network or make friends with students in their class. It is much better at graduate level but with the lives of working students being so demanding we often isolate the learning experience so much that their really is no collaboration going on. We are in a strange era where people feel more comfortable conversing in
E communities/groups then participating vocally in class. I’m not sure this is the greatest thing but it’s certainly lets the shyer students have their say, and since I’m generally one of those this is a good thing for me. I think the comments on wiki’s, blogs, and discussions boards might come rather slowly in the beginning, but persistence and a good facilitator can win the day.

Empirical evidence: notes, observations, quotations

I can’t figure out how to edit my blog entries. I see a remove button but that’s not what I want to do. I have just started playing around with blog’s and I already think wiki's are more user friendly. It’s much harder to pull out the themes and topics from a blog than web ct. I just can’t grasp the ebb and flow of conversation with the blog. It feels a bit overwhelming. I suppose I will have to play with it some more but right now I got to say I’m not the biggest fan of blogs.

Reflections on that evidence

I think I need to keep looking at other people’s blogs so I can see the flow of conversation better. It seems to me that shorter entries in a blogs work better than longer ones as I even have to admit to skimming the longer ones. I know blogs are becoming the hot new toy, and are widely used by anyone who wants to get the word out about anything and I know they seem to be more popular than wikis but while I played around a lot with my wiki site this week I hardly did anything with my blog as I couldn't’t figure out how to edit it.
Right as I finish this I just figured out how to edit blogs. Ouch that hurts. Do I feel silly? It’s so darn easy but I guess that how it is when learning technology.

Empirical evidence: notes, observations, quotations

I love the idea of virtual field trips or virtual museums to back up the material one is teaching. This could really capture the kid’s interest. I know it captured mine. If these tools are out there then we really need to take advantage of them to add color and context to the books that we are teaching. I haven’t had a chance to look into these possibilities yet but I plan on doing that this week.

Reflections on that evidence

Alan mention of the virtual Dickens museum and The Catcher in the Rye web quests piqued my interest a little more and I started to goggle supporting sites for book and writers and the possibilities are endless. Mind-due there is a lot of sifting through and choosing the correct site for the correct task that one is assigning ones students but I think if you can capture some of the online time that kids spend by directing them to specifically chosen websites you could bring life to any text (even Moby Dick:)

Jack Kerouac & the Beats Appreciation Site

http://bostonburn.pbwiki.com/?pwd=y8viKPR299

This is a wiki I'm working on and adding to slowly but surely purely for my own entertainment. Fans of Jack Kerouac's On the Road will like to know that the original scroll that Jack wrote the book on will be on display in Lowell this summer for the first time. I cant wait to see it as its different from the final draft.

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