Things to do

Things to avoid
 
 

Effectively Using Electronic Conferencing

For a fairly comprehensive review of instructional techniques using electronic communication tools, see The Online Report on Pedagogical Techniques for Computer-Mediated Communictaion. An article on the Electronic Quescussion technique may also be of interest.

If you need more information about electronic conferencing at Indiana University, Bloomington, contact the Teaching and Learning Technologies Centers (tltc@indiana.edu, 855-7829, Ballantine Hall 307 or Main Library West 305).

Things To Do

Things To Avoid

Things To Do

1. Plan student activities weeks before the semester starts.
2. Create an outline of different types of activities that challenge students to utilize the conference's potential as more of the semester progresses, e.g.,:
• personal introductions
• chapter summaries
• literature reviews
• group debates
• "fieldwork" assignments (e.g., case studies)
• short research projects
• proposal writing
3. Require students to log in at least twice every week (early during the week to enter their comment to a topic, and later that week to read and respond to replies others have made to that topic).
4. Distinguish between two types of conferences: (a) formal and (b) informal ones. The former are for official class or group-project discussion; the latter are for social networking and peer support.
5. Social support activities are very important for a class. They provide the emotional glue that motivates students to learn together and to learn from each other (rather than only from the teacher).
6. Informal conferences should be open to the whole course, whereas some formal conferences need to be reserved as group work-space.
7. Provide students with thorough handouts and training (STEP classes or demonstrations) on the use of the software and conference, but then make them responsible for familiarizing themselves and each other with the technology.
8. Set aside enough time (create labs, if necessary) to allow students to collaborate in groups.
9. As early as week one or two, pair students up into "learning partnerships" that help them communicate about the unusual format of the course.
10. Enter a controversial topic related to the class content each week and request that students to discuss it electronically.
11. Make students work with the transcripts of the whole electronic class discussion (best toward the end of the semester). This can be done by saving or extracting overriding issues for the whole semester and assigning student teams to defend either a pro or a contra position searching through the whole conference.
12. Create multiple conferences/subconferences for your course. This way you can keep each one focused on one purpose (e.g., one for socializing, one for assisting each other with technical advice, one for sharing literature references, one for each small-group discussion, one for the weekly discussion topics, etc.).
13. Use metaphors to create a sense of architecture for your students to orient themselves in the various conferences you create for them. For instance, you can call a conference for socializing "The Coffee House", a conference for exchanging literature references "The Library", and conference for providing each other with technical assistance, "The Technical Assist Shop", etc.
14. Students should be aware that each conference environment has its own standards of (verbal) behavior. It's OK to make typos and other mistakes when "walking" into the Coffee Shop; whereas a formal conference requires attention to correct language use.
15. If it seems appropriate, invite online experts to the electronic class discussion. Faculty members from the same or other departments on campus may be available for a week to respond to student questions. Authors whose books or articles are part of the course readings might be reached for electronic reactions to questions via e-mail, etc.
16. Make computer conferencing an integral part of your course. If students are to make the effort to learn the technology and be enthusiastic about its learning potential, it has to be important to the course and the way they are evaluated.
17. Encourage students to do work for the conference off-line. In some cases, they may need to learn how to transfer files, but in many cases, they will be able to copy and paste text from word processors directly into conference messages.

Things To Avoid

1. Don't make computer conferencing an add-on of low priority and infrequent use. Students will not master the technology if they use it only occasionally, and they will not bother to explore the potential of electronic in-depth discussions when those make up only 10% of their course grade.
2. Don't separate what's happening in the conference from what's happening in the face-to-face class meetings. Students need to see the function of the technology used for their regular class activities or they will not take the conference seriously.
3. Especially with larger classes, don't expect students to be able to frequently meet in small groups outside of class time.
4. Don't expect students to know how to collaborate. Allow for discussion forums on group conflicts and group dynamics.
5. Don't expect a structure for the conference to emerge if you have no framework planned ahead of time.
6. Don't make students dependent on you as the technical expert for the system, otherwise they'll never learn to collaborate with their peers.
7. Don't make hasty allowances for students' perceived incompetence of dealing with computers. They'll learn once they find out it's important for the course.
8. Don't squeeze everything into a single conference. Any lengthy exchange of ideas becomes rather confusing. Move things into new conferences or create new topics as they become necessary.