Learning Online during a Pandemic

Pandemic semester scramble

Spring semester 2020 is a wrap, and for us all, it was a strange one, to put it mildly. My usual teaching load is two online classes, and two face to face (f2f) or hybrid classes. So when the administration at Lansing Community College moved us all to online after spring break, it wasn't near the transition for me that it was for others who had never taught online. Even so, the two classes I had to switch to online were students who had not chosen such, so I had to move ahead accordingly. The Comp II class was relatively easy for me, since I've done composition online for 23 years. The film class, though, took quite a bit more prep since I'd never taught it online, and it requires quite a bit more media, as you can imagine.

The other thing was that with the online classes, we met every week in real time in Second Life. By mid semester, they were old pros in the virtual world and participated with writing, discussion, drafting, as we had before the shut down, and the same interaction and learning activities as a f2f class.

But for the "new" online classes, Second Life was not an option. It takes a good 2-3 weeks to acclimate students to the virtual environment. And it takes a relatively beefy computer. Throwing f2f students into that situation when they didn't necessarily have the equipment or sufficient broadband service and when the semester was full speed ahead with no real time for acclimation, and I knew had to go lower tech.

But I refused to do only asynchronous through Desire2Learn, our 2D learning-management system. I had two choices: WebEx, the college-supported web conferencing software, or Skype. I had already used Skype with f2f students as a way to instant message me during office hours, and I had never, to that point, used WebEx, so I used Skype.

The two classes typically met four hours a week, so for most weeks, I had a 1-2 hour Skype session, that varied from individual check in (IM me, tell me how you're doing, ask me questions), to group text chat, to audio. I refused to use video camera because I was concerned with bandwidth and heard there had been some issues from others doing so on WebEx.

I did, though, use WebEx with some faculty meetings, both with ones I conducted to ones others led. It was my first time using the video conferencing software. I've done web conferencing before with family, whether it be Google Hangouts or Alexa (though only one on one), or Facebook Portal.

So a couple weeks into the new normal, I had a day with four online meetings, one audio Skype meeting with students, two WebEx meetings with faculty, and an evening class session with creative writing students on MCCAVLC Island in Second Life. All went fine, but I do want to explore a bit some initial observations about the different real-time platforms.

WebEx vs. Second Life

I'll forego Skype. I use it as a back up for online classes in case SL doesn't cooperate and one of us get kicked out and we need to communicate about what happened. I would never plan to use it for a course as the sole, or primary, method of real-time interaction.

But WebEx is being touted as the solution to replacing real-time face-to-face interaction on our campus. You can meet all together, and you can even break up into groups. If you're not familiar with WebEx, it's basically Cisco's version of Zoom, where everyone gets together as talking heads, arranged like the old game show Hollywood Squares, or cable news talking heads. You can change the view to focus on one person, but usually, everyone has it set to grid view.

It's designed for business or corporate use, but it, along with Zoom, have been glommed onto by campuses nationwide as the solution for f2f use.

Which I find is unfortunate.

Don't get me wrong; web conferencing has its place by seeing/connecting with others flung across the four corners of our flat earth. My kids are currently in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Columbus, Ohio. We often use such, as mentioned earlier, and it helps with seeing each other in this time when travelling is out of the question.

But for college classes--if you think it gets you closer to f2f class interaction, it does not. At all. And for a reason I've not heard anyone mention yet.

Interaction with avatars in a virtual environment does get you closer to f2f interaction. Now I know for many this sounds counter intuitive. Web conferencing gives us real-time faces in a real-time meeting. Avatars are once removed, virtual representations of each class member, meeting in real time. They can come across as comic, neutral, or uncanny valleyish. And often clunky. So aren't video faces more immediate, more like f2f than avatars?

Actually not. And here's why.

In a f2f class, the interaction is dynamic. 

In other words, one's attention varies from moment to moment. Wherever you are in the classroom, your perspective changes, whether you're close to a friend, far from the professor, near the door, or in the front row. And who is the focus--professor or another student--can change in a moment.

Another way to look at it is that attention in a f2f class is dispersed. You can look at the professor, peer at a student across the room, study your notes, glance at a text on your phone. Yes, sometimes not focusing will mean you miss something, but often throughout the class hour, our attention ebbs and flows.

In a web conference, interaction  is static. 

You have a grid of faces, no bodies, in front of you. When one is talking, they may light up along the square border. The professor might throw up a screen shot. you might have it set to focus on the speaker. But then you see no one else, or at least you have to do some clicking to see others in the class. And it's all clumsy and flat and grid focused, much like an old dystopian sci fi movie where everyone is the same.

And rather than attention being dispersed, the grid of faces demands unwavering attention. You're always on, especially in a small group. WebEx even has a feature where the professor can see if participants are straying from the cube prison and looking at another website or program on their computer so that you can tell them naughty, naughty! (I'm not making this up. I was horrified when I saw this as an option.)

Participation in a virtual environment class is much closer to the dynamism of a f2f class. 

We're not stuck in the cage of equally distributed cubes (hmmm...maybe that's why our administrators are so taken with WebEx?). We can sit around a table, someone to our right,  someone to our left, another class member across from us. Behind us a mailbox to drop off class activity notecards, before us, a large screen or screens displaying a web page or Google docs. And the dynamics change from me as the prof talking, or a student text chatting a question, or another student using voice to share group results at which we all clap when done.

Students teleport to sky areas where small groups share drafts, or come up with responses to a passage from our text or a short story or a poem. Some teleport back when done, others float down on a parachute that casts a shadow upon the class area when they are about do land.

Social anxiety

And for those with social anxiety? Both f2f and web conferences are a challenge. (And--anyone in education has likely noticed this issue rising in recent years.) But I've found that the layer of separation that an avatar affords often is enough to help those suffering from social anxiety to succeed.

And with this pandemic? We need all the help we can get.

Cubed faces

So why avatars over cubed faces? I think that it might be the static interaction I mentioned above with web conferencing. In other words, with web conferencing, you're always on. A dozen or more faces staring at you through the entire time of a class session, and your face in front of everyone at all times. Yes, you can turn off the camera. But you still have a dozen or more faces staring at you, waiting for you to perform.

Avatars

With avatars, no one is staring at you unless you are speaking and even then, the interaction, again, is dynamic. Again--a dozen faces or so are not staring out at you, but instead, a circle of avatars around a table, drinking coffee or tea, looking across a table, or at a web screen at varying distances from your avatar. And the camera from which you view is entirely customizable where you can zoom in or out at any time.

So you have two ways the anxiety is dissipated. Unlike f2f, when everyone can turn toward you when you speak, with an avatar, they're looking at your representation, not your face. And unlike web conferencing, the interaction avoids cubes of faces staring, and a dynamic back and forth undergirded by the sense of place that all class members are interacting within. Not a glob of cubes.

Two examples from last semester

Student 1 was in my Comp II f2f class, and in the second or third class session, I had them write a short piece and then share in a small group. The young woman came up to me with a panicked, sweaty face: "I can't do this, I'm not prepared with my social anxiety." We talked; I explained that she could pass this time, but to be aware that reading to each other was a significant part of the class. She calmed down and over the next few weeks, generally participated well, relaxed, and seemed to fit in. but then, about week 5, she started not coming to class. She IMed me for a while on Skype, let me know something came up at home, and couldn't attend. By spring break, she had basically stopped participating and after spring break? Well, add a pandemic, and she had to drop.

Student 2 was in my Creative Writing I class. She told me in the second week that she had a very hard time working with other students because of social anxiety, and hence couldn't attend the first class session. She did the orientation scavenger hunt on her own, which was fine, and met with me in world during an office hour. At that time, I reminded her of the separation an avatar afforded, and that I hoped it would help with her social anxiety. She sounded skeptical, but agreed to continue. She came to the next class session. And as the semester progressed, she participated, worked well in groups, read her drafts out loud, even shared for her group with voice (the equivalent of standing up in front of the class). The pandemic was disconcerting to her (as to us all!) and even wrote about it in at least one of her poems. But she completed her portfolio and had no issues that upended her semester.

OK, I lied. One more example, though, only tangentially related. Another Creative Writing I student talked to me in the beginning of the semester and announced his hatred of online classes, but since this was the only section of creative writing this semester, he begrudgingly took it. After a semester of meeting regularly, reading poems, stories, discussing writing, reading drafts and sharing feedback, he told me in his portfolio reflection, "This class was an important stepping stone for my future and I am glad I enjoyed it. Also, as someone who hates online classes, this class worked exceptionally well online!"

I know, I'm cherry picking examples to prove my point. Scientific research might show otherwise. But from my experience through this first semester of the Plague, having to scramble to use different real-time tools beyond what was planned--give me a Mystitool table and students with avatars anytime over the tick tac grid of a video conference any day. Sure, the set up is more intense, and the administrative support is minimal as I've mentioned before (it has taken years to get them to a point where they have a glimmer of understanding and leave me alone), but the opportunity of working with the enhanced sense of place and presence afforded by a virtual world is a number of times more engaging and interactive than Hollywood Squares. "Five hundred dollars on Paul Lynde!"