“Why didn’t our online discussion work?”

This is a depressingly common question in schools/universities and workplaces, when attempts are made to get people using online systems for collaboration and conversation. The idea is a good one: online environments offer great opportunities for people to get connected almost anywhere and any time to get ideas talked through and work accomplished. We’ve been hearing for years about the wonderful future that allows us to sit comfortably in our homes or cafes, engaging online instead of having to commute every day to an office or classroom and deal with other people face-to-face (often to have meetings cancelled because someone can’t be there). Moreover, hundreds of millions of us worldwide are already doing this every day through email, Twitter, Facebook and more. What could be more natural than tapping into our current social practice and harnessing some of it to new work practices?

Should be a doddle … so why is it so hard?

There’s no one reason for the difficulty in getting people who happily use social networking on a daily basis to use the same practices for business or education just as happily. It’s more likely that a range of factors all add together to provide big blockers and either bring online discussions grinding to a halt or never getting going in the first place.

What do we mean by “online discussion”?

An online discussion historically refers to a forum where there’s an initial comment or question followed by responses, which either pile up in a long chronological block or are “threaded” to create more targeted replies to earlier responses. This form of online engagement has been around for two decades and provides a useful system for particular needs. It’s very well suited for specific questions, such as as “How can I filter spam from my website contact form?” A question like that in the right website (e.g., one that appeals to people who care about this issue and have probably experienced it themselves) will lead to a number of suggestions, including a few disagreements, and will probably peter out when the person who asked finds a solution.

In addition, there are the more snippet-based communications that make up most of the traffic in Twitter and Facebook, based on comments thrown out by people, which may or may not get a direct response by other people throwing out their own comments. This browsing, grazing and flitting around provides a completely different and more chaotic engagement. This needs to be saved for another post.

Then there’s email, which takes on some elements of both, but is designed primarily as an updated form of the letter: one-to-one communication which goes out into the world and lands in your space, ostensibly addressed to you personally. Again, not for this post.

Who’s at fault when it just doesn’t work? We are.

There are of course occasions when a participant goes off the deep end and flames out in offensiveness, anger and aggression in a discussion without warning. There is also always a percentage of people who just won’t engage. You can even imagine a scenario when all the participants are suddenly and without any foreseeable reason unable to get online. These aside, it’s invariably our own fault when an online discussion fails, and we have to take it on the chin.

Plan, design and prepare

Here are some things to consider before initiating an online discussion for business or education:

1. The purpose

First it’s vitally important to know and to articulate to your prospective participants why you want to have this discussion, and why it should be conducted online. If this purpose is not personally shared by the participants, it must at least make sense to them. Only the most obliging person will go along with you if they don’t understand why they should. This also includes making sure the participants know what is expected of them, for how long, and what the outcomes will be. Be realistic, don’t expect miracles, and don’t run discussions indefinitely.

2. Access

Once you have everyone on board with the purpose for the discussion, you need to make every possible arrangement for them to have online access and the ability to engage often enough to fulfill their requirement. To some extent you can require the participant to have a certain type of connection, level of access and/or equipment (depending on circumstances), but you need be aware of this issue and do everything you can to minimise problems. You also need an environment that is easy to use and technically reliable.

3. Training & support

Training and technical support are often ignored and consequently deeply regretted.  It should go without saying that you won’t have a good chance of a successful discusson without making sure your participants know how to use the environment and have somewhere to turn if they need help. This doesn’t always require a lot of time or effort, but don’t take it for granted that everyone will just figure it out on their own.

4. Rules of engagement

It’s always a good idea to articulate a list of dos and don’ts of participation, especially for anyone new to group or to the idea of online discussion. It can be useful to have the group create these themselves collaboratively (with facilitation — see no 6 below) as an initial icebreaker and warm-up exercise that is of real value.  If participants feel responsible for creating the rules and have a stake in the success of the discussion, they will be far less likely to break them.

5. The prompt

Online discussions fail most often when the “prompt” (the question or initial comment to get the discussion going) is ill-suited for the task, such as being too:

• closed-ended (“yes or no” questions or those which have one obvious correct answer)
• fuzzy and ill-defined (not understood or much too broad to find common ground)
• boring and purposeless (lacking vitality or without an obvious reason — see no 1 above)
• opinion-based (leading to seperate opinions based on personal experience without the ability to extrapolate lessons or general connections between them)
• biased (fishing for agreement or argument without a clear educational goal)

In general, an online discussion works best when the initial question is targeted and designed to elicit a range of fairly specific, discursive answers, some of which will themselves spin off into mini-discussions and enrich the overall range of knowledge, finally ending when the discussion has exhausted itself and conclusions can be drawn.

6. Facilitation (moderation)

Last but at the top in terms of importance, a good online discussion requires the facilitation (sometimes called moderation) of either the person who designed it or someone experienced in facilitating online activities.  Ideally, he or she will also have expertise in the subject of the discussion, but (maybe surprisingly) this is less important than general facilitation skills. Facilitation involves being aware when the discussion loses steam prematurely or goes off-course and when questions or substantial comments are left dangling. Skillful facilitation will get things back on track, smooth rough edges, elicit quality contributions from shy members and draw out conclusions and shared knowledge.  Even in successful adhoc forums not designed for a specific educational or business purpose (such as the website contact form example above), you’ll find that a forum owner or experienced super-user is active and engaged.

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to effective online learning or collaboration, but I’ve offered a few key areas that will help you avoid common pitfalls.

For more on related online learning practice: What research has to say for practice, a series of short articles based on research.

This is the fifth and last in a series of posts aimed at organisations and educational institutions who wish to overhaul existing learning programmes. I bring together keypoints from the earlier posts along with new ones.

7 Recommendations

1. Planning

Before rushing ahead to ‘blend’ a programme or implement any major changes, it is important to start with first principles:

• Review the purpose, aims and objectives of the programme, and assessment processes to make sure these still hold up, especially in light of the possibilities e-learning opens up.
• Review the organisation, environments and modes of delivery already in place, and consider why the programme is structured the way it is, what the specific benefits and drawbacks are, and how changes might affect the outcomes.
• Consider what you hope the programme will gain by changing it to include e-learning, especially in terms of increasing learner numbers and decreasing dropout rates. E-Learning offers an additional set of tools for building your programme, and it is important to use the right ones in the right place for the right reason.
• Anticipate issues that may arise from change for learners, tutors, support staff, and anyone else involved in the programme. Manage those changes carefully.
• Recognise that the changes you desire may involve resourcing issues, especially in terms of additional staff or additional payment for current staff. This is not a consideration that can be ignored without endangering your goals.

2. Increase interactivity and group learning opportunities

Distance learning particularly suffers from the danger of isolation and tedium, which can be alleviated with structured online group learning.

Possibilities include:

• Online discussions: these should be fully mediated by a tutor-facilitator, who is both skilled in online facilitation and is also a subject expert. However, this can be split between a facilitator, who actively helps the discussion to evolve, and a tutor, who will read regularly and intervene periodically when a question is asked that the facilitator cannot answer or if a point needs to be corrected to avoid perpetuating incorrect information.
• Collaborative assignments: case studies and problem-based learning (PBL) provide good opportunities for group learning, in the form of targeted discussions, collaborative documents and reports, role-playing, project teams, joint knowledge-building and peer review.
• Other online activities that allow learners to share and build knowledge together and interactively.

3. Modify and re-purpose content to fit the different environments

Often, the first thought a team has when considering an online presence for a programme is to turn all printed materials into PDF files or static web pages. This has the benefit of increasing access to those who do not already have print copies but it has the drawback of extending online time and shifting the burden of printing to the learner without offering a real change in the programme and possibilities for learning.

There are more effective ways that programmes can be blended to include online elements, including:

• Increasing the opportunity for interactivity and collaboration (no 2 above)
• Creating ease of access to information and resources, assessment tools and assignments, contact and support
• Providing variety in order to maintain interest and appeal to a range of learning styles and preferences
• In some cases, you will want to shape the materials to fit the means of delivery; in others, you will want to choose the means of delivery to fit the material. In either case, the learning objectives should remain the foremost factor.

4. Increase/improve tutor contact and involvement

Quality tutor contact and involvement can help to stimulate and encourage learners to remain on a programme. However this can be a fraught issue when expectations change abruptly, particularly when there is little or no remuneration for the work. The key here is quality of contact, rather than simply quantity, but quality does require commitment and time. The online environment provides an opportunity for tutors to speak one-to-many, which could conceivably reduce the time commitments that individual emails or phone calls might require.

Some of the ways tutors could participate online effectively:

• Facilitate structured online discussions (no 2 and no 6)
• Offer online question & answer “hotseats”
• Lightly participate in informal discussions, just to show presence and involvement
• Send out group messages periodically to alert learners to upcoming events or opportunities
• Check often and respond to private messages in a timely manner

5. Formalise learner networks

Learners can create the same kinds of support networks for each other that should exist with programme staff. By creating a space ready for learners to create this network, some of the pressure can be taken off staff. However, just stating that learners can do this and leaving them to their own devices will not work. Telephone and email are not the right methods for many-to-many communication, and face-to-face is clearly out of the question in a distance learning programme unless a couple of learners just happen to live in close proximity. One online network is ideal for this.

Suggestions to help build successful online learner networks:

• Appoint a facilitator to build and support the online network. This person must be an experienced online facilitator but he/she does not need any background in the programme subject.
• In all welcome materials, learner handbooks and other programme information, publicise the learner network as an expected element of the programme. Not everyone will use it, but most will at least give it a try and many will depend on it throughout the programme.
• The facilitator will need to build the community and populate it with discussions and initial information before the learners are enrolled. The community needs to look appealing and useful from the beginning. There should be a significant social component.
• The discussions and information need to be kept up-to-date and mirror events in the programme calendar.
• Ideally, the more active members will begin to feel a sense of ownership over the community and should be given rights to create discussions and other items and upload documents.
• Learners should never feel they are being spied on by programme staff. Decisions need to be made about who will be able to access the community and what ground rules apply.

6. Promote formative assessment

Formative assessment in distance learning study is a key way to ensure that learners stay on track with the programme and get regular progress checks, tutor contact and general feedback. This constitutes a level of support that can help reduce dropout rates.

Ways to add/improve formative assessment:

• Make sure assessment tasks and feedback are designed to elicit maximum performance
• Make sure assessment tasks and feedback truly reflect the core aims of the programme
• Include discursive comments on all assignments
• Use online discussions with significant tutor participation to provide informal feedback
• Create collaborative assignments (case studies, PBL) that are assessed or contain an assessed component

7. “Future-proof” the programme.

Keep with other available tools on the internet that freely enable collaboration, sharing of information and use of latest technologies. Develop the habit of thinking about the programme when you discover new tools and considering whether they might be useful to certain aspects. Make sure the programme has room to grow with new discoveries.

Some of the popular online spaces and tools currently being used in education include:

• Dedicated learning management systems (e.g., Moodle)
• Online networking (e.g., Facebook, Twitter)
• Shared private or public document spaces (e.g., Google Docs, Wikipedia)
• File sharing (e.g., Dropbox)
• Photo sharing (e.g., Flickr)
• Video sharing (e.g., YouTube)
• Blogging (e.g., Blogger, WordPress)
• Virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life)

In addition, a shift in emphasis away from independence and towards collaboration paves the way for the development of communities of practice — spaces to share good professional practice, ideas, resources and support. These are easily created and sustained through online environments, and they can provide informal continuing professional development for those who have successfully completed the programmes.

These are my key recommendations. Please add your own suggestions for updating learning programmes.

Posts in this series:
1. Updating Learning Programmes I: 10 First Principles
2. Updating Learning Programmes II: Assumptions that form obstacles (DL in HE)
3. Updating Learning Programmes III: Assessment
4. Updating Learning Programmes IV: Active online participation
5. Updating Learning Programmes V: 7 Recommendations

This is the fourth in a series of posts aimed at organisations and educational institutions who wish to overhaul existing learning programmes.

Active online participation

The early work of Etienne Wenger, Gilly Salmon and Nancy White* brought to the attention of educators interested in making use of online and remote technologies the benefits of online discussion and the formation of communities to promote learning.  There are a number of ways to engage learners and encourage active participation in an online space. These may include:

1. Support interaction with peers.

One of the strongest areas for engagement, but one that is often overlooked by course designers, is a space that allows learners to offer mutual support and build solidarity in order to increase motivation and reduce feelings of isolation and attrition. This is not the same thing as “cafes” or ice-breaker areas, which are usually unstructured and unmoderated chaotic spaces that often go off-topic. This is a place for learners to feel safe letting their hair down, asking for emotional help and admitting to anxieties.

A good way to approach this is to:

• make the space exclusive to the learners on a particular course
• encourage access by different cohorts to allow for mentorship of newbies
• make the space private from the stifling presence of authorities
• identify enthusiasts from within the peer group to facilitate, moderate and perform admin tasks
• suggest initial topics for discussion to show learners what’s appropriate and to get things rolling

2. Opportunities for questions and feedback

Make sure there’s a place for learners to ask questions and get help and feedback from course tutors and administrators. This should be distinct from the peer support area, which is not monitored by authorities, by focusing more on factual and procedural issues. The key here is to make sure this area is monitored daily and questions are answered promptly. This is a good place to build a FAQ in order to avoid answering the same common questions over and over, but you do need to be patient with repetition.

3. Easy access

The online space needs to allow participation at any time and on any reasonably late-model computer with an internet connection. As the internet gets more and more ubiquitous, most courses in the west can make this a requirement for participation, but be aware of what access issues learner may have, including geographical limitation and disabilities, before setting requirements.

4. Embedded online expectations (for blended courses)

Blended learning is often challenged by being primarily (and historically) a traditional face-to-face course that has online activities added to it as a poor relation.  To make the most of the online aspect of a blended learning course, the whole course needs to be overhauled and rebuilt according to which kind of activities are most appropriate for particular learning goals (please see the first post in this series: 10 First Principles).  The online aspect needs to be as embedded in the course design as the original face-to-face, and the two can be linked through multi-faceted (problem-based) projects, lead-in and follow-up discussions, etc.

5. Knowledge built, shared, recorded

Last but not least, a great benefit to online interaction is that it not only provides a place to build and share knowledge, but also to record it as a resource, evidence and posterity. Learners receive validation by peers, and the chance for participants to bring in their own experience and share good practice from work-based learning can continually develop and challenge ideas. This provides opportunities to expand on course content, and the improving knowledge and deepening understanding turned into a shared resource and reference/knowledge bank.  Developing a record of dialogue over time, discussions can be archived and the process of discussion available for future reference.

* Etienne Wenger, Social Learning theory and Communities of Practice: http://www.ewenger.com; Gilly Salmon, E-Moderation: http://www.atimod.com; Nancy White (Full Circle), Facilitation and Community-building: http://www.fullcirc.com/

This is just a selection of things to think about. Please add  your own suggestions for improving active online participation.

Posts in this series:
1. Updating Learning Programmes I: 10 First Principles
2. Updating Learning Programmes II: Assumptions that form obstacles (DL in HE)
3. Updating Learning Programmes III: Assessment
4. Updating Learning Programmes IV: Active online participation
5. Updating Learning Programmes V: 7 Recommendations