I was taken by Dianna’s Posting a Comment is like closing a loop, not so much in the idea of connection she was emphasizing but in the idea of closure. The call-and-response patterns of blogs causes the loop to close rather soon, as everyone moves on to the next post.
This is an issue with using blogs as a communication tool. I find it difficult to “converse” on a blog. A blog is ones own space, and others come to visit. They leave a comment, like a calling card in Victorian times. But if the subject is complex, it’s hard to have a meaningful conversation about it using blog replies.
Dr Couros had asked me in a comment a few days ago whether I thought the class needed a forum, a discussion board where we could “converse”, in addition to the more distributed conversation taking place through blogs and the backchannel communication in our synchronous Elluminate sessions. I did think it would fill a gap, and we looked for some good software/sites to do this. I watched Alec work with his network and even helped test some things myself, but we haven’t yet found a good forum. Some looked bad, some had security problems, etc.
But under our discontent was a vision of a place where we could discuss things in depth without too much hierarchical control. To get away from the problem of one person controlling the blog, a forum would have to let anyone be an author, to start any subject. Then it should be possible to see all reponses together, and to have responses nested several layers deep. Otherwise, one is just making a more open blog, where topics look determined.
But Dianna’s post got me thinking that it’s not just a blog problem. There is a tendency even in forums to force closure and move on. New threads appear at the top, making those that drop below appear finished, or at least less desirable. It helps to make each topic contain one central idea, but even then the linear nature of forum design forces the mind to work a certain way. The tendency is to “move on”, as if by lingering on the topics down below one is somehow impeding progress.
Both blogs and forums, then, can have that tendency to cause people to move on before subjects been more fully engaged. I think now that this tendency is caused in great part by the design of blogs and forums.
Are there alternatives? Are there web-based ways to have less linear conversations where the hierarchies can be subverted more effectively?
Your desire for conversations about technology that don’t close, that continue, is a timely one. As technology drives us into new directions that never seem to have an end point, the conversations about what tech is doing for us, for our students, in our current paradigms, always have a terminus, be it a thread in a buried email, or next week’s blog post, or the end of the hour on Elluminate.
I can’t think of another forum that will keep the conversations moving forward continually, but the fact that you are asking the question means puts a challenge out to this community. perhaps the amswer lies in implementing technologies with our students, measuring the results. In other words, maybe the conversations stop at the point in which we stop talking and start acting. Whene we have an idea about what’s working, and what’s not, we return to a new conversation, and start all over again.
I’ll be interested to see where this conversation goes, and what action we are challenged to take as a result of being a part of it.
If a conversation starts with a unique tag, then following it to all the locations it can live in can become a kind of game. In other words, get away from linearity by starting each conversation with a searchable tag, and then the search becomes the non-linear infrastructure of a distributed conversation. To the extent it’s a game, it can engage even quite young students if they have good search skills. #eci831conv1
OK, so, Ed, then it doesn’t matter where the conversation is, it’s still distributed, and you follow it through a unique tag used by everyone who’s participating? Then somehow we find the tags and … do…. what?
Please clarify good search skills? Something beyond putting #eci831conv1 in Google?
I was thinking we need some sort of combination of forum with mind-mapping, but this is going the other way. I’m interested…
Like I know. I’m riffing, here.
But minimally you’d want participants in the conversation to know how to set up a google alert, use twitter search – tracking skills. If you figure out your comment tracking issue, that might help, too.
I thought of mind mapping, too, although I know of no way to automate that. Perhaps a dipity timeline would work to track the conversation across the interwebs?
http://ietherpad.com/HrIqgjV301
Oh my, what hath you wrought, my mentor?
I think we just hit your blog’s limit for nesting replies.
Isn’t ‘hath’ third person singular? I have, thou hast, she hath? Just, y’know, sayin’
Will I remember I posted this here or that there, though?
http://ietherpad.com/HrIqgjV301
Oops, yep, thrown out of the nest.
So “what hath God wrought” is right, but “what hast Ed wrought” is the better version, I guess.
I have, thou hast, he/she hath, we have, ye have, they have.. got it.
Say, just found the setting where I can nest more and more…
Like an infinite onion.
Hi Lisa,
Last semester I took an online class and part of our assessment was based on our contribution to a forum. When the class first began, I didn’t really enjoy the forum, more because it was “forced” but towards the end when the guidelines were loosened, I did enjoy it and there were some very good discussions taking place.
It’s funny that you should post on this topic because I was thinking just last week that I missed the forum and that opportunity to have a conversation. I, like you feel that conversing on a blog is hard and I have not thanked everyone who has commented like Dianna did (is that bad netiquette because if it is let me know because I am thankful for all those who have commented!)
I am not sure of other options that might be out there for us but I do know that I would like to see something that would allow us to converse (outside of Twitter of course!). I think I’d like it even more if it wasn’t part of the assessment. (Middle years teachers are so often like their students, tie it to marks and it seems it is no longer as enjoyable
Wow, I wonder what netiquette we’d be violating if we just set up a conversation place for ourselves?
Do it, I won’t find you. Promise.
That’s really funny!
Great post Lisa,
and your thoughts on “forced closure” of threads and moving onto new topics echos my negative thoughts about forums. For those of us who do not stay on-line all day, we miss out on opportunities to converse. And yes, older threads are less desirable as they move down the page !
Often I am interested in a thread and open it in anticipation, only to find there has been no activity for 6 months… and I feel dejected.
Good luck in the search for an alternative.
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Are there any forums that bring all new posts to the top like facebooks news feed? Or? Maybe Facebook would work?
I’d feel really uncomfortable asking anyone to join Facebook, since you can’t get really ever get out and the privacy settings are so dicey.
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