Comment on Lifestream summary: week 4 by jlamb
‘The public nature of our lifestream blogs also allows us to see just how varied our responses, strategies and approaches are. It’s also more than a little intimidating, and I haven’t yet reached a conclusion about whether I’d prefer to work ‘blind’ and have my progress reviewed by only a tutor…’
This is really interesting and timely for me, Helen. Earlier today I participated in a seminar around assessment where a great deal of value was placed on students providing each other with feedback. One of the key ideas put forward was moving the tutor away from centre stage in order to get students to work together on establishing what represents high quality work. Something that I think is overlooked in this – and which you attest to here – is how comfortable students feel about sharing work with their peers. Your experience would suggest that putting work on display for fellow students is at least as anxiety invoking as getting feedback from a tutor? As course and designers and tutors, I wonder whether we are in a danger of focusing so much on the benefits of community learning that we can sometimes become blind to whether this type of peer review approach really works for every student?
‘The second half of the week brought, for me, a sense of disconnect as we retreated to consider our MOOC choices. After spending three weeks developing my links and connections with the other students on this course, it felt like we were moving away from ‘our ‘community to explore community.’
I’m intrigued by this, Helen. Out of interest, do you think that ongoing interaction is important to maintaining a sense of community? Do you think something is lost when we step back from some of the more communal spaces to work individually for a while? Is there something about digital learning environments that makes it particularly important to have some kind of ongoing interaction with one’s peers? It will be interesting to think about this in relation to your chosen MOOC over the coming weeks.
‘It’s interesting that our discussion around the MOOCs and our choices has moved to the relatively private world of the Hub and I was thinking about why this might be: is it to ensure that our discussion around the MOOCs is not accessible by others who are participating in/delivering the MOOCs?’
In a way, moving conversation into a forum on the Hub seems out-of-step with the very public and open nature of the EDC course. On the other hand, as you recognise, conversations around the different MOOC communities might feel stifled if they were held in a more public space.
‘I’m already considering the ethics of engaging with the other learners on my chosen course when my motivations aren’t ‘pure’. This presentation by Kozinets considers some of the issues but I need to find out more about the netnography netiquette and the ethical issues and suggested approaches to ethnographic studies of online communities.’
The idea of whether we should feel entitled to observe others – what I taking from your comment about not having ‘pure’ intentions – is one of the concerns that ethnographers sometimes wrestle with. What I’d say here Helen is that if there’s anything in particular you are uncertain about please do let me know by e-mail and we can discuss it. I presume you’ve already seen this information on the course site:
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