Balance in Online Communication

 I found this second blog to be challenging because of difficulty in choosing a topic.  With an opportunity to blog about any topic relating to online education, many ideas came to mind. I considered investigating the research regarding the use of didactic or active learning approaches relative to the expertise of the learner.  Regarding my own learning, I prefer didactic teaching when learning new information in my areas of expertise.  When learning information with which I am not familiar, however, active learning techniques help me to learn best. Using Google Scholar, I was unable to locate information regarding this topic. I need to do further searches to determine is this topic has been addressed in the literature.

I next considered a problem discussed in Collison, Elbaum, Haavind, and Tinker (2000) – how can an online learning facilitator best balance private communication and public discussion in an online course?

This is a question I have dealt with first hand and which can be very challenging for an online instructor. Collison et al. offer some important ideas such as encouraging students to use the official school email address, rather than a personal email address when corresponding with the instructor.  Many semesters, a student will approach me and say “I don’t use my school email, so please send my email to ________@gmail.com . When I was a new teacher, I would take the little slip of paper containing the student’s alternative email address, say “thank you” and then struggle through the semester every time that I sent an announcement regarding the course.  If I did not remember to send a separate email to the students who had odd email addresses, those students would not receive needed information.

My experience is consistent with the advice of Collison et al. – It is helpful to inform the students they  need to use the school’s email address when communication for their course as doing so will decrease the likelyhood (disclaimer: I forget to follow my own advise with this point occasionally.

Collison et al. describe the advantage of using the discussion board application to post and save the majority of the course communication. As they mention, storing most course communication in one location decreases confusion and saves time when older communications must be located and read by the instructor. I have learned to create a folder in my email inbox for each new class that I teach so I can easily locate pertinent information .

Collison, G., Elbaum, B., Haavind,S., & Tinker, R. (2000). Facilitating online learning: Effective strategies for moderators. Madison, WI: Atwood Press.