Chapter 15 Reflections
A Handbook on Educational Communications and Technology
Computer Mediated Communication
This chapter focuses on what the authors refer to as “Computer Mediated Communication” which is primarily asynchronous communication using technology like discussion boards, email, web conferencing etc. This chapter caught my interest because one of my goals at work is to facilitate more interaction in the E-Learning courses I develop and I am finding that it is a difficult goal to achieve. I was not surprised to see that the authors found that other course designers also have the same struggles as me when it comes to fostering “Computer Mediated Communication” but it was also nice to read that they did find some common success factors that I can learn from.
When designing courses I find that I tend to place most of my focus and effort into developing self paced tutorials because that’s the deliverable that the boss wants to see and it’s generally what takes the most work. I’ve been making more of an effort to build in more activities using discussion boards but I haven’t had the greatest success getting participation without twisting arms. I’ve learned that you can’t just put up a discussion board and hope that everyone will jump on the bandwagon and participate.
The chapter mentioned several factors that affect success and the factors that stuck out to me are “Time to Participate” and “Motivation.” The main objection I hear is that people are too busy to participate but I think that if you can provide enough motivation then they will find time. Going forward I’m going to try and provide motivation by including activities like discussion boards as part of the course grade which I have not done in the past. Reading about the successes and failures described in this chapter will help to improve the success of “Computer Mediated Communication” in my organization.
Romiszowski, A. and Mason, R. (2004). Virtual realities. In D. Jonassen, (Ed.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (2nd ed., pp. 461-497). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
