Reading 11 Theme 5

Reading 11
First reading on Theme 5 : Online Communication

Salmon, G. (2000) . A model for CMC in education and training. In E-moderating: The Key to Teaching and Learning Online (pp22-37). London: Kogan Page


Background:
In searching for sources for an assignment I found Salmon’s work online and then her name cropped up in our class discussion, so I was prompted to a closer reading of this book borrowed a few weeks back. As a novice to all things online, the term “e-moderating’ held an elusive meaning for me. Salmon defines it and deals with it very practically in this book. I have the third reprint of the first edition and she has since updated it. (See http://www.atimod.com/e-moderating/intro.shtml). The chapter I am going to discuss is relevant to our theme of online communication and reflects back to our previous theme of design.

Chapter 2: A model for CMC in Education and Training
Salmon grounded her model for Computer Mediated Conferencing (CMC) in research carried out in the Open University of the United Kingdom. The consolidated five-stage model built from this research may also be viewed at http://www.atimod.com/e-moderating/5stage.shtml. The benefit for using the model to design a course with CMC is that knowing how participants are likely to exploit the system at each stage avoids pitfalls. All students progress through these stages with varying responses to how much time is spent at each stage. Each stage suggests student characteristics and/or needs and e-moderator responsibilities.

STAGE 1: Access and motivation
• setting things up, technical issues, e-moderator initiates contact to motivate and clarify course

STAGE 2 Online socialisation
• Students recognise the need to identify with each other, to develop a sense of direction online and they need some guide to judgement and behaviour; Evidence shows that individuals struggle to find their sense of time and place in the online environment. They recognise the need to identify with each other, to develop a sense of direction online and they need some guide to judgement and behaviour; Lurking may occur (she suggests the nicer term of “browsing”) but it is natural at this stage and a normal part of socialisation.
• E-moderators must facilitate interaction across cultural, social and learning divides; they need to tolerate chat conferences and online socialising that increases “belongingness”. Moderators must create an atmosphere where the participants feel respected and able to gain respect for their views. CMC offers affordance of online socialising but does not create social interaction.


STAGE 3: information exchange,
• Participants learning requires interaction with course content and interaction with people, namely the moderator and other participants.
• Moderators facilitate tasks and conferencing that focuses on discovering or exploring known (to them) answers, or on aspects of problems or issues.
• Potential student strategies for dealing with overload start appearing e.g. not read all; removal from conferencing; read all but rarely respond (they may disappear)
• Learning how to exchange information in conferences is essential before students move on to full-scale interaction in stage four. At this stage, motivation and enjoyment come from personal and experiential communication.

STAGE 4: knowledge construction,
• More exposed, participative interactions; more active learning; widening of viewpoints and appreciating differing perspectives. Grasp on theories and concepts is enhanced through debate and examples.
• The focus is on the process – creative cognitive process of offering up ideas, having them criticised or expanded on, reshaped or abandoned in light of peer discussion.
• Issues best dealt with at this stage are those that have no right answers, or ones students need to make sense of, or a series of ideas or challenges. Issues are likely to be strategic, problem-or practice-based.
• E-moderator must build & sustain groups, weave discussion, summarize occasionally, stimulate fresh direction.
• Flattening of hierachical communication structure between e-moderators and participants

STAGE 5: development .
• Participants become responsible for own learning through computer-mediated opportunities and need little support beyond that already available.

Discussions & Questions
Besides the readability of this book, I found the model strangely comforting. I tended to personalise it as I read and found that my own personal experience with online learning closely follows the procedure /sequence described. Would it be useful for e-moderators to share with students new to online courses what can be expected in the various stages? For example, after the term “lurking” was used in our course, I felt guilty about my participation level and pressured into saying something just for the sake of not being a lurker. Similarly, when browsing, how does one acknowledge that browsing? While active participants would want input from peers, could it not be equally annoying to have posts that did not really add anything?
In one of her findings, Salmon notes that a very able face-to-face facilitator online continued to assert authority to the detriment of knowledge construction online. She concludes that face-to-face skills are insufficient in themselves to ensure successful interactive conferences. (I find this interesting as I feel that this could in fact apply to me!) Although Salmon does include chapters on the competencies and training of e-moderators there seem no clear teaching on how to develop these skills.