Grounded Guidelines/Case Study: Education
Characteristics of the Communication Technology
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The central technology in use on the course was text-based conferencing and electronic mail. There was no formal timetable for the contact which took place, save for one three hour introductory session at the beginning of the course, and another three hour session in the middle. The session at the beginning was used to present the technical facilities of the course to the students, and to introduce the strategies for communications which were to be deployed. The lecturer was at pains to point out to the participating students that the course was not an "online course" as such, but rather it was a course which relied heavily on communications within the course group, and between students and staff.
Another thing I should have said, and I say it to the students from the beginning - this is not an online course, so to speak. It is a course which depends upon communications. So the first thing I want from students is their address, their fax number, their telephone number, their email, their FirstClass account, Web pages, etc. And all I am guaranteeing is I will get in touch with you somehow. [Lecturer] |
Most of the course activity, apart from these two "face-to-face" sessions, is mediated through the electronic mail and conferencing system FirstClass. This was seen as a powerful yet accessible tool which was easy for the students to use, irrespective of their previous technical experience.
And there are pressures on us to incorporate other technologies - you know, that we should be incorporating video and application sharing and various other activities as well as simply the CMC. But I think we need to take it a little bit slowly. I think that on the other hand there are students who find it quite hard to actually get going even with FirstClass, given that you really don't really have to do much more than download it and say "Run" and you're there. The prospects of them getting some other kind of software going are horrendous. So there are pressures to move on now. [Lecturer] |
If I start from the beginning, the Masters students all have different skills and backgrounds in IT, so in the beginning the software, FirstClass, that we use was actually just like a playing ground for people to get familiar with the technology. It is used to get people to vent their ideas out, to get used to typing on the system, and then that moved on to being actually being a platform for debates. [Student] |
