The Social Mediatization of Higher Ed and AI

The new normal

Since the supposed end of the pandemic (I say this as COVID cases are rising in our state and a WHO leader says we're still pandemicing), workplaces nationwide have been grappling with what is the new normal--mostly face to face (f2f) before 2020, mostly online for many professions through 2021, and now--hybrid with some f2f, some online.

Many companies and institutions as we know have been pushing everyone to come back to brick and mortar buildings--employees have resisted. The many benefits of doing work at home, uninterrupted with commute time, are something most don’t want to give up.

In higher education, the same--faculty and staff want some online, while administration would prefer full buildings. 

At Lansing Community College, administration now require full-time faculty to attend meetings f2f, teach some classes f2f, and wish students would take f2f classes.

But students are not cooperating. Sure, there are more on campus, but many, if not the majority of students, want online classes at least as part of the mix.

Administration claim that students want online classes that are fully asynchronous. I actually don’t see much evidence of that. The last couple semesters I’ve been forced to teach at least one asynchronous class, and I’ve surveyed them, asking why they chose this mode over online real time (ORT), or f2f. Most students say they chose the class because they don’t want to come to campus. So online over f2f, not asynchronous over ORT class sessions. A few do recognize that the class is asynchronous and choose for that purpose (usually because fitting a weekly class session into their busy schedule is too difficult--which alone is a bad sign--or because they experience social anxiety in meeting real time). But many more actually expected real-time class sessions with their online classes, especially those entering college for their first semester. They had just left pandemic high school where online meant real-time sessions on video conferencing.

But let’s say that administration do have evidence that students are looking for asynchronous courses over ORT. (If they do, it’s curious they haven’t shown us.) Why would that be?

Too Busy

One reason, again, could be students who are too busy. This has been an issue since the beginning of online classes offered at LCC. As I think I’ve mentioned before, the college once on their schedule book advertised taking classes in your slippers. Or "No time for school?" Take a class on the Internet...." Students got the idea that online was easier, and hence were surprised when the work was as challenging, if not more so, than in a f2f class. 

This is also known as the butts-in-seats syndrome. Keep enrollment up, letting students take whatever attracts them rather than counseling effectively to fashion a schedule that they can really succeed in. We continue to do butts-in-seats practices like allowing students to enroll up to a week late without talking to a soul, or having faculty approve such, which we used to do. But when enrollment is down, administration overlooks what enhances learning for what enhances enrollment. If you’re an administrator and you think I’m being unfair? Oh well, I’ve seen it happen way too often over the last thirty years. You’ll not persuade me otherwise.

Social anxiety

Another reason--social anxiety. I don’t think we acknowledge enough the effect that f2f schooling has had on a good number of students. Educators often think f2f class interaction is superior to any other because we succeeded with such. But many students I’ve had over the years really struggle with f2f interaction, and if given a choice to avoid it, will do so. And video conferencing is not a real-time solution to this aversion. They will not turn on their cameras and should not be required to do so, even though faculty prefer seeing faces. Cameras zoom in on a student’s face, and the screen presents a grid of faces staring back, both of which exacerbate rather than reduce social anxiety. Zoom fatigue is a real thing, I’m sure you all recognize. It’s worse with those dealing with anxiety. And I won’t even get into the problematic nature of invading a student’s space rather than meeting in a neutral space. (See my previous post “Learning Online during a Pandemic.”)

Incompetence

Third reason--incompetence. When we were all slammed into online-only in 2020, students (and faculty) had to acclimate to video conferencing. Many in both camps did poorly with it, and once we got back to buildings reopening, faculty who didn’t adapt well with Zoom/WebEx disparaged the mode and either went back to f2f or settled with asynchronous. Administration--seeing some faculty do poorly with it, and some students as well--have decided it’s just not worth offering ORT sections, are convinced that students only want asynchronous online, and so have starved ORT. I had one section offered out of all Composition I sections last semester and it filled. And the one section we offered for Composition II this spring semester? Canceled due to low enrollment.

Social mediatization

And one other possibility: the social mediatization of education. Current students have had years of experience with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and so on. They’ve spent many hours asynchronously scrolling through posts/videos/audio of others, have made their own posts/memes/videos, have replied to others positively or negatively. So when they get to higher education and want to take an online class, avoiding the need to come to campus, they will often do so with the asynchronous experiences they’ve had for a decade back of mind. 

I do see a number of students really excelling at discussion boards today, more so than in previous years, where they present thoughtful, well developed responses, and often use research they glean from searching online to back up what they say. Yes, some of this in the last year has been from ChatGPT. But not usually the good stuff. There is a real sense that young students have been interacting asynchronously much more than we saw, say, ten years ago.

The asynchronous trap: generative AI

But faculty--you’re falling into a trap. If you think that the administrators are right, that most students want online asynchronous classes, and you didn’t care for faceless Hollywood Squares WebEx or Zoom, and you’re all in with expanding our asynchronous offerings--have you heard of generative AI? It’s certainly not ready for prime time, but very soon, it will be good enough to teach your asynchronous classes. Or at least take over much of the work you do.

Last semester, during a meeting, a faculty member on WebEx shared how she was using ChatGPT for lesson planning. The administrator in the meeting asked, “How long did you take to complete the lesson?” She said a half hour. He asked how long it would take without ChatGPT? Two and a half hours. 

I don’t think yet it’s conscious with most administrators, but as AI advances and enrollment struggles, what do you think will save money to keep the college going? Reducing faculty. I’m not sure when AI will be able to teach fully an asynchronous class, if ever. But very soon, the pressure to raise current seat levels is going to build. And administrators will find it eminently reasonable to take a first-year English composition class that is already too full at 23 students to 50 or 75 or 100 students with the aid of generative AI. Will it be as good as a professor with 23 students? Maybe. Maybe not. But I’ve learned over the years that administrators find “good enough” good enough, if money can be saved.

Real-time interaction in education

Anyone who has taught any length of time will recognize the value of real-time interaction in education. It need not be all that a student experiences. In fact, in higher education, it never has been. Most work students do has always been asynchronous. What do you think the old rule of thumb--2-3 hours of work for every hour of class--consists of? Some study groups, sure. But mostly reading/writing/researching alone. And very soon the enhancement of asynchronous work by AI will be a real thing. In fact, if you’re paying attention, it already is.

What we as faculty can do that AI cannot is real-time interaction. Discussing, reading aloud, answering questions, having students share their work, working in small groups, doing presentations to the whole class. And this should be a part of most classes. Students want online? Great. But they need to meet in real time with the professor and with the class to create most effectively a community of learners. Can it be done well with web conferencing? It can. Though as I’ve noted before, WebEx's lack of neutral space is a problem, and its enhancement of social anxiety weakens its value (as is the case with f2f interaction).

ORT whole-class interaction in a neutral space with embodied representation not disembodied faces--virtual spaces like Second Life, as I’ve been arguing for over a decade in this blog--are currently the best way to have class online.

"A bumpy night"

Faculty really do need to reconsider online learning, to incorporate interaction that is most inclusive and most engaging. I’m almost done with this adventure. Those of you who have a decade or two ahead of you? You need to argue for real-time, whole-class interaction in online courses during department meetings, at whole college gatherings, in academic senates, and in union meetings and negotiations. And pester IT for support. If you capitulate to asynchronous only, as Bette Davis once said as Margo Channing in All about Eve, “Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

Whose space are we in?

 This fall semester, Lansing Community College is being led wisely by upper administration to operate primarily online, with only a handful of classes meeting face to face. So we aren't facing the situations where many colleges jump into class as usual, even with face masks, and immediately have to shut it down when Covid-19 cases balloon.

So all of my classes are online. The college administration and faculty, since the wholesale switch to online last spring, have discovered real-time interaction in online classes. They distinguish online as being asynchronous, and online real time (ORT), as including real-time interaction. Of course, the utter ridiculousness of seeing online as only asynchronous has been something our institution and many others have swallowed, so it's a shock to them, when the idea of meeting in real time was thrust upon them. And thus it's a new experience for most faculty, and administrators.

Anyone who has followed this blog, though, recognizes that none of this is new for me. In fact, since 1996, I've been exploring synchronous interaction in online classes when I conducted text chats on Internet relay chats (IRC). Yes, asynchronous participation and work is essential as part of the makeup of an online class. Actually--it's a significant aspect for f2f classes as well, at least in college. Most work in college courses takes place outside of the real-time interaction of class sessions. Period.

What is new for me, as I mentioned in my last posting, is web conferencing. This semester, three of my classes will meet in SL, one on WebEx (and not by choice--I had a low-enrolled section of Composition II cancelled and had to pick up one where they would be using video conferencing).

So like it or not, I'll be using Hollywood Squares with one of my classes. I'll spell out more of my approach and experience later, but I do want to point out one thing (beyond what I mentioned last post) that I'm not sure many have thought of that I find problematic with web conferencing in college classes. 

Whose space are we in?

For face-to-face classes, we're on campus where we all congregate to work and learn together.

For virtual environments like MCCALVC Island on Second Life, the same. A place where we congregate to work and learn together.

WebEx or Zoom? We're asking students to bring us into their space. To open a video window into their bedroom, living room, dining room, back yard, office. 

• Does anyone see a problem here?

I've now used WebEx a couple times with students. I give them the option of using their webcam, or not. I've heard that some professors require webcam usage. I will never do so. And consequently, they do not use theirs. So, a scad of squares with initials, and me, using webcam when I'm talking. 

Now I get why they don't. Using video can be problematic with bandwidth, slow computers, lack of camera and the like.

However, another reason could simply be that webcams are invasive. We're not meeting in a neutral place. They are being required to show us their space. For some, that's fine. But for others, showing us their living area can be for some reason intrusive or embarrassing, especially if they are living in less than optimal surroundings. Which would not be unusual for community college students.

So requiring video? Or even encouraging it? 

• Seems to me it is a way of widening the socioeconomic gap that we have in higher education.

Yes, students can use a "virtual" background to obscure their living space in WebEx and Zoom. But I've found that the use of fake-looking backgrounds that distort the video image of a person's head is more distracting than beneficial. And it gives the impression one is hiding something. That one would have to choose to obscure the space is the point. Instead, having a neutral space to come to that is not their home/living space/park bench is important. And everyone showing up with an avatar--rather than some showing their face and living room, and some not--enhances an equal access and equal footing in the learning environment.

Now, don't get me wrong. Any online education exacerbates socioeconomic gaps. Our society is wildly deficient in making sure we're all able to access broadband internet. And my use of a virtual environment has its difficulties since you have to have a relatively beefy computer (no phones or Chromebooks) and broadband.

But--at another level, it's much more of an equalizer than web conferencing. Again, it's a neutral place. We all congregate not in anyone's living room, but in a virtual class area. We all have an avatar which we choose and can modify. We don't need to show our faces, which makes many people nervous. Even in a f2f class. And even though some of us have beefier computers than others, we all have to deal with the vagaries of a virtual environment that can glitch out on any of us at any time.

Real time interaction--in f2f environments or online environments--are essential parts of a learning community. And I'm glad to see many others are "seeing the light." However, we need to give as much thought to the space we meet in with students online as we do with brick and mortar classrooms.

And web conferencing ain't it.

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!"

Are Writing Centers Remedial?

I've never considered the Chronicle of Higher Education as a click-bait publication. Maybe I'm naive. I always thought of it as a reputable periodical serving faculty and administration of colleges and universities nationwide.

This February, I began to rethink its approach when it published an article "What's Wrong with the Writing Center?" basically an interview of Lori Salem about her research with the writing center at Temple University, asking the very interesting research questions, why students do and do not visit their writing center. The article's writer, Rose Jacobs, basically set out to suggest that Salem was an outsider in the the writing center subfield of rhetoric and composition, a voice in the wilderness decrying the orthodoxy of writing center tutoring--serving the privileged and ignoring or poorly serving the underprepared.

Salem, in an immediate letter to the editors, countered the tone and position espoused by Jacobs--that she was very much a colleague within the profession, and not at all alone in questioning what is working and what is not within writing centers across the nation. As she pointed out, "my colleagues have embraced my research--they gave me a reward for heaven's sake!" She ends her letter with the following: "To be clear, I don't believe that there is anything fundamentally 'wrong' with writing centers."

Even so, looking past Jacob's "mischaracterizations" of writing center professionals, the article did lead to some fruitful discussion on our campus.

This semester, I'm the interim faculty coordinator for the Lansing Community College Writing Center. So when I began to hear talk among colleagues about directive vs. non-directive tutoring, especially in conjunction with asynchronous online writing feedback some students were receiving from Brainfuse, and discussed it with the real writing center coordinator (who is on sabbatical), I decided to have the writing assistants working with me read and discuss during our staff meetings the interview, letter to the editor, and the original article Salem published in the Writing Center Journal, "Decisions…Decisions: Who Chooses to Use the Writing Center?." The conversations centered around whether or not writing tutors should be directive in their work with student writers--asserting suggestions for writing improvement, more like a teacher might do, or non-directive--asking questions, leading students to discovery of improvements in their writing, more like a peer would do. Salem's research suggests that directive response should be part of the mix, especially with first-generation, ESOL, or developmental students who have less experience with writing than do students from families where the parents had gone to college.

The faculty working in the writing center were pleased to hear that they could put on their teacherly hats when they felt it best served students. The paraprofessional and student writing assistants already recognized the need to do so at times.

Which is fine with me.

However, I am concerned.

Not with the possibility of writing assistants asserting writerly advice at times. But at a shift, it seems, on the purpose of writing centers. Salem mentions in her research article that writing centers can espouse who they are and what they do, but they cannot necessarily control what writing centers mean to students.

One of the student writing assistants, when we were discussing why students seek out writing centers, and why they don't, shared her own experience, that when she was in a composition class while submitting her first paper, she was pretty convinced she would need to go to the Writing Center to get help. But when she got back her essay with a 3.5 grade, she realized she didn't need to.

Writing Centers were a place to get help when one's writing was deficient. And that seemed to be the overwhelming view among the staff, at least when discussing these articles.

But that's not at all what writing centers meant when we started one at LCC twenty years ago.

Now mind you, maybe I just misunderstood. I participated in the initial discussions about starting a writing center at LCC in the mid 90s; my oldest daughter and youngest son worked as peer writing assistants in the early 2000s, as did a number of my students; and I've encouraged many students to take advantage of the writing center through the years. But I'm in no wise an expert on writing center pedagogy. As most readers of this blog will attest, my focus has been more on online and virtual-world pedagogy, especially in the last ten years.

But from the beginning, the writing center was not a place to get help, but a place to get feedback. It wasn't just for those who had deficiencies in writing skill, but for writers. All writers.

One claim by Salem for why writing centers avoided calling themselves remedial was for the sake of status. If they were remedial in focus, working only with those who needed help, then they would be looked down upon at universities.

But that's not why the Writing Center at LCC avoided being called a place for remedial writers. It was because doing so was too narrow. The center was for all writers. And all writers--those who struggle, and those who excel--need feedback, a place where their ownership of writing is assumed, their ability to express something insightful is recognized, their intelligence and experience are celebrated. Not a place, as had been so in the past, to fix their writing, to be drilled with worksheets, to be remediated.

Years ago, my oldest daughter and her friends when attending LCC used the writing center all the time--and as I noted above, she eventually became a writing assistant. She and her friends were in honors composition courses--and they went to the center, again, multiple times, to get feedback even though they had been recognized as responsible students and skilled writers. When I've taught honors courses, again, I've encouraged students to work in the writing center at any stage of their writing.

It's a place for writers to engage, discuss, get feedback, try out ideas, style, expression. And yes, to improve, both one's writing and one's strategies as a writer.

Writers at all levels. Not simply those who need remediation.

I guess it's part of the whole mindset that has engulfed higher education in recent years, a totally utilitarian approach where education is only job training. Now of course higher education has always been a means to a career or profession. But its focus has been to include a liberal education, to learn broadly, to expand one's thinking and approach to life and society, to become a part of an educated citizenry, not just a worker.

I hope it's still worthwhile to resist, to approach our work with more of a sense of the whole student in mind. To realize that the ownership of writing, the celebration of insight, is a right and a gift that all students should be given--first generation, people of color, speakers of other languages included. They may not at first recognize their ownership of writing, their insight, their agency with their education (and newsflash--many second+ generation students don't as well).

But we should.

A Writing Center should be a place for writers--all writers.

High Impact Practices in an online class

Inside Higher Ed published an article recently entitled "Making an Impact in Online Courses," a report on a session at the annual Association of American Colleges and Universities conference at Washington, D.C. (a professional organization who advocates for the inclusion of liberal arts in all aspects of higher education).

The focus was on the incorporation of high-impact practices, an AAC&U term that incorporates researched activities that have proven to enhance student learning, such as learning communities, writing-intensive courses or collaborative assignments and projects.

The three member panel from Mary Washington University, McDaniel College, and St. Edward's University discussed a variety of projects and practices, mostly focused on encouraging students to write, and collaborate, and interview people in their communities.

Sounds good, though--as I experienced when attending this conference a couple years ago--as someone who has taught online for decades, I found much discussed obvious--for example, one professor mentioned how much better participation in interviewing became when she first had students submit a proposal about who to interview.

So, good stuff, and if you're new to online learning, helpful to recognize some things that are helpful when teaching in that venue. However, most of it is asynchronous, even though interactive at some level, disembodied, and substantially lacking in presence among students or with the professor.

At the end of the article, one participant brought up something that was quite interesting:

Jesse Stommel, executive director of the division of teaching and learning technologies at Mary Washington, said ... that he wants to see informal, self-motivated discussions considered as a high-impact practice of sorts. In his face-to-face classes, he sometimes starts class by asking how students spent their weekends, and students sometimes approach him after class for free-flowing conversations that last 10 minutes or more. 

He thinks creating an environment where similar spontaneity can flourish would make a high impact as well.

It brought me back to a conversation I had years ago with a colleague who had tried teaching online, and did so for several semesters, but then gave it up and went back to face-to-face teaching. He told me that he missed the informal interaction with students, being able to joke around, talk about their weekend, the give and take that he saw and enjoyed in a real-time, f2f environment. This lack is exactly what Stommel seems to be decrying and suggesting is as integral to an educational experience as other high-impact practices.

My observation is that when we limit online learning to asynchronous 2D, text-based environments, we lose that spontaneity, that opportunity to create community with students where more informal, though vital, interaction can take place. Yes, we can create a simulation of informality through our emails, or assignment language, or syllabus. We can jump into discussion forums and interact with students asynchronously. We can even do some real-time text chat, or even audio, or even video conferencing that helps some. But notice that none of that real-time getting together as a learning community was mentioned in the article, and rarely is with online classes.

Our campus is no different at Lansing Community College. We've had online classes, online degrees offered since 1997 (as I've mentioned some years ago in this blog). But the push has always been asynchronous, with very little recognition of the value of synchronous interaction.

For the last eight years, I've been using Second Life with my online classes, where we meet as a whole class once a week. It operates just like f2f meetings. We talk about our weekends, movies, the weather before class. We work as a whole class, in groups, do peer review, writing exercises, visit sims related to their work (especially for the creative writing students where they are able to interact with other poets, fiction writers, storytellers in world). We are doing Stommel's high-impact practice.

Is it perfect? Of course not, any more than f2f interaction is. But with embodied avatars operating in a 3D space, students can see a representation of each other, work together in a place (rather than a computer 2D window), hear each other and participate in a learning community each week; I've seen (as have others) "an environment where similar spontaneity can flourish" as it can in a classroom on campus.

But it's difficult with little support from administration. I'm allowed to teach this way in online classes. But I'm on my own. I have no technical support, and the ability to get what I do (Is it an online class? Is it a hybrid class? Is it an online but hybrid class? What is it?) has been difficult to comprehend by overworked staff, administration, even academic advisers. And explaining it as an overworked professor! I've not had the time, or energy, to promote as I could, and even if I did, I'm not sure it would do much good. Online=asynchronous learning to many--students, staff, faculty and administration.

It's really a shame. Because with 3D environments, the experience that online students have could be so much more. Sure, they can still learn in a 2D learning management system like Blackboard and Desire2Learn, and such is integral to my class. But that spontaneous interaction--as my colleague put it, the ability to joke around--is largely missing, and there is no good reason, today, for such to be the case in online learning.

Some notes on the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference

I haven't attended the VWBPE conference in a couple years (or at least not much beyond a session or two), but since this year it fell on my spring break, I decided that I should do so.

I went to a number of excellent sessions, some in Second Life and some in the Opensim grid Avacon. I also hadn't spent much time in an opensim in several years, and I have to say it's much improved, though still a few years behind Second Life. (Of course, I do admit that some of that could simply be my level of skill with Opensim!)

Even so, from this year's conference, I could tell that the work in and excitement surrounding the use of virtual environments has escalated. The last few years have been rather bleak in many ways for teaching in world--from Linden Lab's abandonment of support for educational institutions (though it has been reestablished), to the larger culture's gaze at MOOCs as the shiny new thing (until the success rates of single digits became known!), to the adoption of mobile devices as the go-to place for online engagement especially among young people. But now with the feverish hyping of virtual reality head sets (I have a Google alert for "virtual reality" and get a dozen + hits a day) and the growth of Minecraft, it seems that recognizing the value of virtual environments in education is beginning to rise out of the trough of disillusionment in the hype cycle that Gartner has been publishing for the last few years. I heard, in fact, during the conference that in Virginia virtual worlds are now a required part of the tech standards that students need to fulfill in K-12.

So here are some notes about sessions I attended:

Virtual Worlds and Transactional Distance in Higher Education Online Courses – a Student Panel

This was my favorite session, where online students discussed their experience with using Second Life as a class meeting place during their online course. During the beginning of the course, the professor had them try a session in a virtual web conference program and then one in Second Life. They then chose which to continue meeting in. They all chose Second Life, and apparently this has been the overwhelming choice for a number of sections. The reasons that the students selected the virtual environment was because they felt like they were in a class with other students and the professor, rather than the more flat (their word) experience of talking heads in a web conference.

Of course, this was something that really interested me since I experienced much the same thing when first interacting with others in Second Life. There was much more a sense of being with others than I had experienced in 2D web interactions.

Ebbe Linden speech

The CEO of Linden Lab spoke for an hour giving educators an update on the improvements taking place in Second Life (most interesting to me, an upgraded browser in media on a prim), and on the development of Sansar (or as some call it SL2). He stated that both platforms will be operating separately for years, that SL users will likely find Sansar not as feature rich as they are used to (which prompted me to question in chat why then would we be compelled to move--which was not answered), but that it would ultimately have in-world building capability, though initial building will take place with third-party programs.

Here's a video of the talk presented on Daniel Voyager's blog if you'd like to see it. And here is a more robust summary on Jo Yardley's blog.

OpenSimulator Featured Panel at Avacon and Stephen Downes' keynote

As I mentioned above, this is the first time I've spent any time in opensim grids in several years. I have avatars in Jokaydia grid, Third Rock and OS Grid. Only the latter would allow me to hypergrid to Avacon, and it worked great.

The sessions went smoothly, though I can't say I'm a fan of Teamspeak as a separate voice platform, even though, to be fair, it worked fine. And no shadows--everything looked much flatter than in SL, but again that could be because I'm not familiar with any particular settings I should have set up.

It was great hearing from the featured panel about the projects being worked on in opensim grids by educators, and about the problems and improvements that are needed (primarily focused on communicating with others what they are doing--quite a shout out to Google+ by the way--and smoother hypergridding). And Downes' keynote was interesting, though I'll just give you a link rather than noting any take aways, mainly because I was struck more with the venue than what was said.

If hypergridding becomes as smooth as teleporting in SL and if the number of events/exhibits become readily available for writers and undergraduate scholars, I would seriously consider moving.

Karl Kapp keynote

Kapp's keynote was entitled "Reaching the Engagement Horizon in Virtual Worlds: Crafting Engagement Through Games and Gamification." I've never been a fan of gamification, but his work that he presented was intriguing. Though rather ironic--his main point is that active learning and activities is the best way to learn in virtual worlds, as he lectured at us for an hour!

A couple take aways:

He noted that when we use 2D web communication like Skype, we are very aware that all participants are in different locations, that there is a distance between us--we can hear sounds from different places and/or see images from different rooms or venues. However when we meet in virtual worlds, we are in the same place doing the same thing.

This is something I've long noticed about virtual worlds, that when avatars meet, there is an intimacy (a word that came up during the conference that I had never thought of but is quite apt) that arises, a sense of person, that does not take place in 2D conferencing venues. Don't get me wrong--2D communication through audio and video is great, but the disembodied heads floating on a screen separates rather than brings together participants. The placeness of virtual worlds creates connection that I've still yet to be able to explain.

One other take away: We learn from games not because they are fun, but because they are interactive.  (Though it seems to me that fun does motivate game playing! If it's not fun, players won't interact!)

At the student panel, I had asked them the part that a sense of place contributed to their choice of 3D or 2D meetings. At first they didn't quite get what I was asking, but they mentioned that Second Life was more fun, and not in the sense that they were playing a game, but more so that just seeing others in different avatars, in different environments, was much enjoyable, lightening the very serious work that they were doing as a class.

The week prior, I had my creative writing students go on a field trip. They were studying setting in fiction, and I asked them to go find sims that corresponded with their settings they had been creating in stories and poems. One group came back with animal balloons; they had visited a zoo sim and were quite excited about the animals (and balloons) they had discovered.

So I'm still not sure how far I'd want to go with gamification, though I think definitely a sense of play at some level is valuable with learning, and I've found that interaction and fun are definitely valuable with online courses in virtual environments.

There were other excellent sessions, and it was great to hear what has been going on with the Virtual Pioneers and Caledon Oxbridge, but this blog entry has gotten long enough so I think I'll stop here.

One other thing, though--in the process of participating in VWBPE, I learned about, and tried, a couple of other virtual worlds, Edorable and High Fidelity. Both are not ready for prime time (not even for late night) but were intriguing to check out. The developer of Edorable claims that his media board is entirely synchronous, that what the instructor does on the board is seen by the students, just like in a face to face classroom--even with password protected sites. This sounds quite promising!

Now, really, I'm done. I guess that's what you get when I haven't blogged in a while!

Virtual Worlds 2.0: High Fidelity and Magic Leap

This morning I watched a couple videos from the MIT Technology Review's EmTech Digital conference that took place on June 1-2 in San Francisco. The first one was with Philip Rosedale--the founder of Second Life--talking about his new-virtual world company High Fidelity: The Quest to Put More Reality in Virtual Reality | EmTech Digital 2015 | MIT Technology Review.

This new version of a virtual world allows for the presentation of facial expressions that match actual facial expressions of the human driver: if you turn your head, smile, blink, blow out your cheeks, your avatar will do the same. It's also going to run on anyone's computer/server with an easy upload and naming of virtual world URLs, low latency (when you say or act, it takes place with no lag to speak of), and will interface with a variety of interfaces, from laptop, to Oculus Rift, to HTC Vive, to HoloLense to Magic Leap. The company is also working on making access to the virtual world beyond the keyboard and mouse. More natural, haptic, using hands to manipulate objects in world rather than coordinating a keyboard and mouse. And it will also have two similarities with Second Life: the capacity to build in world and a marketplace.

He discussed the use of the virtual world in education: "One of the areas we think virtual reality, particularly head mounted displays, is going to have some of its amazing early impact in virtual worlds is in teaching. If teachers can create learning spaces that they can invite students into and those students can look the teacher in the eye and be present and be aware and be attentive we think it's going to have a radical, accelerating impact on the online teaching that we're already doing today." He also mentioned later the idea that teaching and teaching-like experiences will be more immersive, such as having a discussion.

Of course, the sense of presence in an online class is something I've been exploring for several years in Second Life. Would the changes he mentions above add to the immersiveness of a class discussion, the sharing of writing, the participation in field trips or virtual world excursions?

I think so. Especially facial expressions--looking naturally at each other in the virtual environment--would add tremendously. Head-mounted displays would make it so that you could look at each other rather than manipulating mouse and keyboard to have your avatar move its head (which most students don't at all do!).

But that seems down the road a good number of years for most students because of the expense of head mounted displays and other haptic hardware. The biggest issue is latency and smooth, uninterrupted connection to operate the virtual environment. When students have a glitch-free experience, the interaction, social presence, immersiveness is much stronger. When they are constantly fighting lag, slow rezzing, jerky avatar movement and such, then the presence goes out the window.

In the last couple years, the stability of SL and the ability to access it with student computers has been much improved. Adding more tech-heavy stuff, like a head-mounted display, would take us back to glitch-land, at least in the beginning.

But even so, for an online class, students with a head-mounted display would have to be able to operate a keyboard, to be able to type onto a notecard in world. Last month for the first time, I tried the Oculus Rift and found that  the use of the keyboard or mouse was difficult because I couldn't look down to see it. Being able to do so would be necessary, or being able to access a virtual keyboard in world might work.

The other video session I watched from the EmTech Digital conference was about Magic Leap: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2015 - Magic Leap. The nearest I understand the product being developed is that it creates virtual images not through stereoscopic head mounted displays (think the old View-Masters) or other 3-D stereoscopic glasses used in 3D movies (in essence how Oculus Rift and other head mounted displays work), but through a light field that is projected onto your eyes, much like how we receive light in the actual world. And the idea is that it can blend imperceptibly with the light of the actual world simultaneously, creating a digital/analog augmented reality.

An augmented reality display, like Magic Leap (or Microsoft's HoloLens) might improve the problem I mentioned above, that of being able to see one's keyboard in order to write, an important necessity for courses that involve lots of writing. But would they keep the sense of presence that a virtual environment offers, blocking out the pile of laundry on the sofa, or the barking dog in the back yard (not that current iterations do a good job with the latter!) The whole idea of presence with the professor and other students in real time in a shared space is what needs to be preserved and even more so enhances with these new ventures into virtual reality, at least when it comes to online education.