LMSSSSs

First, I'd like to echo Ryan's frustration with LMSs like iLearn and Blackboard. I've had extremely negative experiences with tools like this, and they do become, as she point out, a chore.

I think the foundation for a good idea, though, is definitely there. Based on my own experiences, I think there are two major things missing from such systems.

The first is motivation. In our discussion in class today about the learning process, I was struck that most of us talked about learning as something that we WANTED to do. Which, I think, makes sense. We're graduate students. No one is forcing us to be here but ourselves (hopefully). We're learning because we want to. Students in high school (and, I think, to a great extent college) don't necessarily possess the same motivation. As a result, Blackboard forums are a place people go to because they have to, to complete an assignment. This is externally-imposed learning (I'm sure there's a fancier word for that, but I don' t know what it is, so that'll do) as opposed to self-imposed learning.

I think Coopman's example of the bio students participating more actively in an online forum receiving better marks in the class. She neglects to ask a question that boils down to a question of the chicken or the egg. The students that are participating probably would have received higher marks in the class with or without the forum simply because they're more engaged and interested in the material. The forum has nothing to do with it other than being another way to show that they're more interested and engaged.

To be truly effective, a discussion forum has to be something that students participate in WILLINGLY. It can't be handed down from above that they have to go there, make 12 posts in 6 forums about 9 topics, each of a length of 675.2 words. No one is going to benefit from reading Joe Schmoe's bullshitty post that he makes just because he has to--it'll be just as boring to everyone else as it is to him, and it will just dilute the real substantive posts that come from people who really care.

That brings me to my second point, which is that Blackboard and iLearn are incredibly un-intuitive and not user friendly. If a product is difficult to use, people aren't going to use it. I hate iLearn, and I only visit the site when I have to (and not because I'm not interested in the material). I don't hate Ning, blogger, or Google Reader, and I'm using these tools even when I don't have to for classroom-related activity.

The tools we're using for 790 are (to some extent) market-tested. In other words, they're already successful products because they're easy to use and serve a purpose. I would be willing to bet that if a professor set up a discussion forum with a more user-friendly interface, it'd be more heavily used than iLearn and other common academic products.

I think part of the reason for their user-unfriendliness is that academia is unwilling to give up those hierarchical notions of student-teacher (despite the lip service given to the idea) and want to prevent online anarchy. Yeah, as Coopman points out, students are going to be more off-task when the tools they're using allow them to post pictures, sounds, and have a more free-form environment (as opposed to text-only), but they'll also be more engaged. My solution is simple: ditch the fear and deal with problems from a defensive state-of-mind rather than an offensive one.

What I mean is, go for the completely radical horizontal environment that lets students and teachers post, see, and comment on everything in an electronic environment that's easy to use, aesthetically pleasing, and not too concerned with people's hierarchical relationships. If someone abuses privileges, then take them away from those abusers, give them warnings, or somehow or other deal with the problem after the fact, rather than trying to prevent something that might not even happen to the detriment of the whole community. Even most online message boards have moderators that oversee things. It would be more effective to start with unlimited privileges (eliminating them as necessary) than it is to start with already-limited privileges.

I also don't think it's such a bad thing if people are off-task in such a forum. If people are having personal conversations, it's going to create a tighter-nit community of students that is more comfortable learning together. I'd even say that there SHOULD be an area where students are encouraged to be off-task in their interaction to promote that community-oriented environment.

I don't have a solution to making students more engaged in the material. It might just be the way things are. I know I'd never sign onto a discussion forum about nanotechnology as it relates to the population of tsetse flies in Africa. But here I am posting a blog about New Media for an English class. It's not that hard to figure out why.