Our little Angel Adventure on Tuesday was bizarre, unexpected, funny, frustrating, and a completely new experience for me. While I've used multiple instant messenger programs, I had never talked with more than one person at a time in the same conversation. As Anna aptly said, it was even a bit like a junior high dance. However, I think what we were trying to do - hold class more or less as usual, just didn't fit the mode of communication we were using.
What frustrated me:
Like many other people in class have expressed, I was frustrated with Angel's chat interface. How different would class have been if we were using an instant messenger that told us when people were typing? How different would it have gone if there had been no lag time between hitting "enter" and seeing your text appear in the conversation? I'd bet money that conversation would have been much smoother than it was. I was also distracted by the multiple threads of conversation we had going at several points. I wanted our Angel chat to be like a normal class, where I have enough time to think and respond to people before we switch topics. I frequently felt like while I was free to "talk" at any point, I was less likely to be heard.
What delighted me:
While I was frustrated at the same time, I loved how quickly we moved from topic to topic without having to completely shut down any options for further thought. In class, I would have had a harder time saying, "Rachel, I know you said this 20 minutes ago, but just now that got me thinking about..." However, in the chat environment, no conversation truly ended - everything just opened up more doors for further thought. I also loved the "playful" environment we created.
From talking with several other people in class, I know just how frustrated lots of us were. While I understand that, we really were at our best when the conversation was unbridled and freewheeling. Control of the conversation slipped out of everyone's hands, and instead we were left riding a slightly unbalanced tilt-a-whirl - which can be frightening and fun.
How I would use this in my own classes:
As a method of actually holding class, of thinking deeply about our readings, Angel would not be effective. I mean, we're grad students for goodness sake and not even we could stay on task (despite the best efforts of several students and Dr. Arola). However, that's not a bad thing. What we did do was come up with a million little ideas - and that's how I would use instant messenger (especially for a large group) in class. It seems like chatting would be perfectly suited for coming up with discussion topics which could later be hashed out in more detail on message boards or in class discussion.
I know some people thought the class was wasted time. For me, it was so interesting to watch us "fail" at holding normal class while succeeding in coming up with different topics to talk about. Angel chat just wasn't suited for what we all wanted it to be.
In the end, I enjoyed the carnival.
I do appreciate your frustration; but I think we should not generalize facts. As we have seen in the readings, online discussions had many advantages, which face-to-face discussions can not achieve. Take breaking the serious routine or the advantage of being at home while posting as an example. Again, I agree with you that the disadvantages were startling and frustrating. However, this does not mean that they can not be fixed. We should read about other successful experiences and see how they survived.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Jill. I found the live chat very frustrating, but I can see your point about how no conversation ever ended. This can be viewed as a positive for the discussion board, assuming that everyone is able to at least put there thoughts out for people to read. I also think that you make a good point about the playfullness of it all. It reminds me of our first blog post and how most of us discussed the importance of considering the purpose of an assignment before we can engage it. I would argue, too, and this is going back to Selfe, that we have to be familiar with different modalities before we can teach and even have some kind of expectations for the results. So, after reading all of the cool feedback from Rovai, Faigley, and Rouzie, I think that we went in with high expectations. It was really not until I revisited our archived discussion that I could see what the writer's were talking about in relation to our live chat. I guess that it was pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post,
Jessica
I have to say that a big part of the fun for me was giggling with you in the Bundy. So, in that way, I guess I broke the rules of having all of my class interactions via Angel. Why did I come down (Rachel asked)? Actually, before the Bundy I stopped in Jacob’s office for comfort and consolation when the system shut down. Clearly, I value interaction and was not willing to sit alone and let the lesson run its course. So, you are right. It was fun to laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing, but I wonder if I would have been laughing if I was alone in my office. I am guessing, maybe, no.
ReplyDeleteI love your point: "However, in the chat environment, no conversation truly ended - everything just opened up more doors for further thought. I also loved the "playful" environment we created." I think that, too, is what can delight me about these spaces.
ReplyDeleteI've found, when the work best, it's usually for smallish groups (5 students). It always seems in big groups someone ends up feeling left out, like it moves too fast, and just gets angry. Last week was a case in point.