May 5, 2008
Using Leisure Activities in Education Corrupts Learning Process, Paper Argues
A new paper argues that introducing activities associated with leisure—such as iPods and online discussion forums—into education corrupts the learning process.
The paper, “Learning to Leisure? Failure, Flame, Blame, Shame, Homophobia and Other Everyday Practices in Online Education” by Juliet Eve and Tara Brabazon at the University of Brighton, argues that the “blurring of leisure and learning has corroded the respect that is necessary to commence a scholarly journey.”
Much of the research is drawn from Ms. Eve’s instruction of a virtual seminar course, where she struggled to control students who mocked the lesson plans, “flamed” each other in online discussions, and drew pictures of male genitalia on the site’s virtual blackboard.
“The normative behavior of the group was dictated by their self-characterisation as socializing students rather than learning students,” the authors write.
The paper was published in the Journal of Literacy and Technology.—Catherine Rampell
Posted on Monday May 5, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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This sounds more like poor course design and failure to establish a student-teacher relationship than a problem with “leisure activities”.
— Al May 5, 04:59 PM #
This paper doesn’t match the title. I was hoping for a paper that provided a solid critique of online learning, but the paper was just a complaint about student misbehavior.
This would be better suited to the ‘My First Time Teaching’ type stories versus a scholarly journal. The people didn’t know how to use the tools, didn’t plan for misbehavior, and didn’t seem to know how to handle the students.
— Eliot May 5, 05:01 PM #
The paper failed to point out one common finding from CMC reasearch. Specifically that the development of group norms takes longer in CMC than face to face (this is a result of the lack of social queues). It is possible that a single semester class where students only interact for a few hours each week isn’t long enough for those norms to develop to the point they would in non-CMC environments.
I agree with Eliot. The paper seemed more like a bunch of complaints with “supporting research” than an actual scholarly work.
— Kyle Johnson May 5, 05:17 PM #
Looking at the Chronicle’s headline I was more than a bit taken aback. The actual article doesn’t represent
what is stated in the Chronicle headline at all. Instead, we see a struggling academic trying to maintain control in an environment she appears to have little experience in.
Both articles emphasize the desperate need for empirical research on this topic as conjecture is quickly becoming the means of support in argumentation on both sides of the issue. I think that if this current trend continues, the students’ education is the most likely to suffer as a result, and no one wants that.
— Peter Naegele May 5, 08:48 PM #
I was shocked that the authors would want to share such an experience and try to convert it into a scholarly article. This is just an example of poor course design and a faculty person being unprepared. I would hope that people entering into the world of CMC for the first time would have done the preparation (reading & PD) needed to make it work. As Kyle stated earlier, the development of a group in CMC can take a long time and needs to be consciously addressed. If it is not, classes could degenerate as they did here.This is clearly an example of where the technology is not to blame.
— Kevin Schoepp May 6, 03:19 AM #
I associate reading with leisure. The Concluding Unscientific Postscript is a gas. Trust me.
— Philip J Tramdack May 6, 07:35 AM #
Did you look at the journal’s page and the editorial board and other accepted articles? It is hardly a “premiere” journal. I doubt there was much critique of the paper before posting it.
— gg May 6, 10:00 AM #
P. 47: “However, what is
significant about this setting was the extent to which students behaved in ways that might
have been expected to be facilitated by anonymity and physical disconnection.”
Not really – this is exactly how middle school kids behave under the same circumstances.
The paper is a classic example of what happens when one is unprepared for facilitating a technology-enhanced learning experience.
By not establishing boundaries and standards of behavior in advance, the instructors allowed the students to do it on the fly.
Though I agree somewhat with Eliot (#2), regardless of academic merit, the paper is worth sharing with every new online instructor as a series of anecdotes as to what can go wrong when students are left to their own devices (and norms developed on anonymous social sites).
— jrb May 6, 11:29 AM #
I noticed lots of unnecessary polysyllabic jargon in the article, and the authorship seemed quite sympathetic to the instructor involved.
If the course reflected a similar style, that is probably what the students reacted so negatively to.
It also appeared as though there was an attempt to impose some type of politically correct “hegemony” in the class that was remniscent of the feminism of the 1970s & ’80s. That won’t impress anyone in this century.
I’m not a big fan of technology, but I wouldn’t blame this one on the machines.
— KDR May 6, 11:54 AM #
Kyle is right on the mark. It is likely that the class participants had stronger prior relationships with each other than with the instructor who was viewed as the newcomer and therefore subject to some disrespect.
Even from the early days of the Internet (ARPAnet), many of our email discussion threads lacked basic civility with people calling other participants rather nasty names. Usually unjustifiably. I was shocked the first few times I participated in such discussions. It seems that the lack of face-to-face contact does not engender the usual initial respect one reserves for strangers. Perhaps this could be avoided by at least showing images of the participants.
— Richard Thall May 6, 12:03 PM #
I think the most telling quotation from the article is this:
“Juliet Eve was a session facilitator and was a novice user of CMC environment. She had not thought through the implications of running a virtual seminar for the first time and the possible scenarios and trajectories of the session. “
So, really what this article is describing that an unprepared teacher had a catastrophic class session.
Well, duh …
The part that has me scratching my head is why the authors would want to make this train-wreck of a class session public.
— Anonymous May 6, 01:04 PM #
It seems another error on the part of the instructor was not being active in the online discussion board at a level sufficient to nip the juvenile behavior in the bud. I, too, have had students post inappropriate comments, images, etc. But, as they and any comments to them about the inappropriate postings were quickly deleted and students were emailed with reminders of the posted guidelines and rubric for the discussion, this behavior quickly subsided.
It’s not about being PC or feminist, it’s about establishing and maintaining a learning environment and not a social environment.
Today’s digital native students use these technologies to socialize and it’s up to the instructor to model how they can be used for learning. The instructor had a challenging class and we can all hope she learned from the experience.
— Luccia May 6, 01:50 PM #
I know this may sound irrelevant now, but in twenty years you’ll understand. There must be cruel and unusual punishment in virtual worlds, lest they remain uncivilized.
— first marci May 6, 06:25 PM #