I’m almost too embarrassed to post this. It’s been such a trying day. Owing to my hard disk going down, I’ve been trying to work off a really rubbish DELL laptop. Only.. I don’t have any of the applications I need installed, can’t install them because I’m not an administrator, and beyond that I just don’t really know my way around Windows as well as OSX. Hitch after hitch.. in the end I realised that I could (kind of) use the mac I poured 750 millilitres of water into four and a half years ago. Its screen doesn’t work (repair costs more than a new PowerBook, despite the piece that is broken costing less than a pound. Note to self- must learn to micro solder) and I haven’t updated anything in ‘a while’.. but it was easier to attempt this on my TV screen than continue with the DELL. I’ll try to upload a still visual tomorrow, with some notes, to connect what I have said to some theory.
Thanks for watching/listening.
Update – I’ve re-recorded the audio. Not ‘amazing’ quality still, but best I could do under the circumstances.
Update 2 – I’ve put together a text-based version with discussion of the findings using sway.com.
Hey Renée,
first of all: the idea of having a conversation, almost like a radio play, illustrated by imfographics and MOOC snapshots, I think this is great and really works for me. It made me smile, think etc. So that’s good.
Yet the sound quality is poor and of course you know, which is really sad, because hence your work does not shine quite like it could. So if you want I can try fixing this. I would need voth your aound file and your viseo file, not saying I can fix it, but I can try.
Either way, I really like and enjoy your approach and work!
Thanks for the kind offer, Dirk. The original audio isn’t great – recorded off the rubbish DELL I mentioned. I’m going to have another shot today after my classes (re-record) – and after my IT admin has approved some new software.
I appreciate your offer, though – and if I fail miserably I’ll be in touch!
Hi Renee,
I really enjoyed this and think that you did a superb job considering your situation. Using a conversation to demonstrate a lack of conversation was entertaining. The visuals were a great suplement and it was clear. I’m guessing it was time consuming getting data from the forums?
I wonder if the questions asked were genuine questions or rhetorical ? Were they ever really listening to each other?
Linzi
Thanks, Linzi. Collecting the data was time consuming! Good question about the nature of participant questions. At the time I thought they were genuine – but I could have been wrong. I did have a person who had lived in similar countries to me comment on my introduction, with questions, and someone asked about the University of Edinburgh as I mentioned it in my disclosure. However, by the time I realised they had commented on my post (it’s really hard to find your original posts owing to the limited search functions/tools that don’t work on the platform) both had seemingly left the course.
Perhaps they weren’t genuine questions though – I hadn’t thought about that.
That sounds like a nightmare. It sounds like it would be difficult to keep a conversation going unless taking it ‘elsewhere’. Although i didn’t experience this on my MOOC, it is something that I have experienced over the past three weeks ‘online’ and in reality.
I am an observer by nature. I like to watch and assess a situation before I contribute. When I have a conversation with someone I take everything in BUT online it’s impossible. I can’t seem to ‘get a feel’ for them or what they are trying to say. In situations where you are forced to communicate with others are you doing it because you are listening to them or because you need to comment and show your knowledge and critical thinking??
Hmmm……
Hi Renée,
Fantastic work as always! I love the way you have pulled your findings together.
I also focused on discussion forums for my ethnography and also noticed the affect that limitations of the LMS have over community development.
Would you say there were other factors that played a role in the poor uptake of communication between participants?
Well done again!
Stuart
Hi Stuart – and thanks for your comment and generous review!
I’ve added a more wordy, written format of my micro-ethnography, because, as you allude to, there are quite possibly more factors that were influential in the low uptake of communication. The short version:
-it’s a new ‘group’ – it’s probably unrealistic to expect norm formation and relational exchanges, as per Kozinets’ community progression model (2010);
-the MOOC only lasts for 6 weeks at any rate, so it is unlikely that participants anticipate future interaction, and therefore they may remain task oriented (Walther, 1997, cited in Kozinets, 2010, p. 24)
-the course is, like many MOOCs, information oriented, and prescriptive about what needs to be learned. Perhaps real participation needs to be student driven: students deciding what and how they learn (and with whom).
Heading to your blog just now.. Thanks again!
Renée
That sounds like a nightmare. It sounds like it would be difficult to keep a conversation going unless taking it ‘elsewhere’. Although I didn’t experience this on my MOOC, it is something that I have experienced over the past three weeks ‘online’ and in reality.
I am an observer by nature. I like to watch and assess a situation before I contribute. When I have a conversation with someone I take everything in BUT online it’s impossible. I can’t seem to ‘get a feel’ for them or what they are trying to say. In situations where you are forced to communicate with others are you doing it because you are listening to them or because you need to comment and show your knowledge and critical thinking??
Hmmm……
Linzi
Ah yes – the hoop jumping contribution. Very familiar with that one, Linzi.. (from a previous online course, not mscde, of course 😉 I guess I thought though, that since most people didn’t bother to complete the required replies/posts (the average number of posts+replies of the 99 with public profiles that started in week 1 was 8/median 6, yet the first week alone required 10 (combined) posts+replies) that at least some of the questions may have been genuine.
You are quite right though about forced participation leading to a performance or demonstration of engagement, knowledge and critical thinking. Which, of course, privileges a particular way of ‘being a student’. Gourlay (2015) is a good read on this.
Despite your protestations, this is brilliant work as ever, Renée. The infographics work well to illustrate the findings which you refer to in your audio.
Like Linzi, I’m conscious of how much time it must have taken to collate all of this data! Very impressive stuff.
As Stuart has already noted, the limitations of the learning environment you were in are striking: your LMS impaired rather than enhanced your ability to connect with the other learners. I really like the Collier quote you’ve used in connection to this.
Thanks for sharing this and I hope you get all of your technical issues sorted soon!
Helen
Thanks Helen – both for the generosity of your review (video is most definitely not my medium, and if I ever make another prezi it will be too soon;) and for the technology well-wishes. I’m waiting on a new hard drive.. It’s hard to be patient.
Amy Collier’s blog is a really inspirational read – I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Renée
Super conversation around your work here Renée! I actually thought the sound quality was deliberate, to represent a phone call between the two people – perhaps a comment on old media / ‘new media’?
Nevertheless, using a dialogue to discuss a lack of dialogue (in the MOOC) was really clever, and allowed you to cover lots of insights and conclusions in a really creative way.
As has been commented above by Stuart and others, the limitations of the software is a really strong conclusion here about the potential for ‘community’ to emerge in this space. I hadn’t realised that the platform in question is so difficult to navigate, specifically in terms of finding people and conversations.
In that sense, I thought the (phone) conversation was a nice way to illustrate the need to take connections ‘elsewhere’ as Linzi commented.
So, despite the lack of micro-soldering skills, your micro-ethnographic skills are certainly on show, nice work!
Thanks, Jeremy. I should have played the ‘that was my intention’ card!
I was surprised too. When I was choosing courses I enrolled in several through the same provider, so I’ve been into them to see if they work differently. It’s hard to say without knowing the history of a particular thread/particular threads in the others, but I can’t see any evidence of the older posts being moved to a different forum, & I didn’t come across dysfunctional ‘buttons’. Perhaps those delivering it have the option of what they enable/disable. The other big difference in the others I’ve subsequently checked out is a high moderator presence (absent from ‘mine’).
Echoing everyone else’s comments here, this is great.
On the basis that so many other members of the group had already offered their thoughts, after the opening moments I ignored the visuals and just listened. I recognise that I’ll have missed content as has been intended, however I thought the simplicity of the two-way conversation worked extremely well. For me, listening to the voices in isolation really heightened the contrast between the to-ing-and-fro-ing between the protagonists and the absence of dialogue in the mooc that is being described. Or to put it another way, devoting my attention to what was being said really brought the sense of voice to the fore, something that was lacking in the mooc.
In the best sense, this was like listening to a BBC Radio 4 drama on a Tuesday afternoon. Super.
Thanks James – what a compliment. I love a good radio drama!
Hi Renée
I really enjoyed hearing your voice and thought it enhanced your presentation despite your doubts.
It is so important that systems are designed to promote smooth functionality and it is therefore surprising to hear that a platform created for many thousands/millions of learners is so poor.
Thanks for a very personal presentation
Clare