Thu, 1 May 1997 12:56
From: Roger
One reason for the decline in my usage of the listerve was the sense that there was no real dialogue occurring between the users; rather, much (though not of all) of the comments ended up being unidirectional, without any reaction to the issues raised. I suspect many others in the class felt the same. Yet I, like many, did not make much effort to respond to others' comments. Why? Perhaps a combination of inertia, the vulnerability inherent in publishing one's views before a group, the fear of offending someone, the perceived lack of valuable ideas to contribute, and the underlying sense that I really did not know what in the world I was talking about in any case.
With respect to the issue of vulnerability, posting comments on the listserve involves a peculiar combination of putting thoughts in writing, and at the same time, being spontaneous. With spoken comments in class, generally extemporaneous, one is not subject to the same level of scrutiny one might experience by putting thoughts in writing for everyone to examine. Yet, by its nature, a comment on the listserve almost always involves less reflection and deliberation than would typically characterize an essay, a paper, or some other written project. I think the same is true of e-mail, but the potential chilling effects on this hybrid form of communiction is magnified when you are posting a message to a group of evaluating peers, who are, in a certain sense, competing with you. In fact, I am a little uneasy about this message itself, given the fact that I am writing off the top of my head, and that it all seems fairly obvious, not very helpful.
Concerns about the form as well as the content of a message on the listserve may also have a chilling effect. There is no easily accessible spell check function, and the inevitable spelling errors and typos in a spontaneous, quickly typed message is potentially embarrassing, as are (God forefend) grammatical errors, the failure to find the most suitable word, effective sentence structure, etc.
Maybe one way to encourage more usage of the listserve would be to REQUIRE members of the class to make at least one contribution per week, of any length, cryptic or clear, on any topic, serious or playful. This requirement might prime the pump and encourage more reactions and dialogue.
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997, 18:00
From: Karen
I agree w/most of Roger's comments, but I'm not sure I'd like to be "required" to post to a listserv. Students are not "forced" to participate in class, so I can't see forcing someone to write emails. Quite frankly, I dislike listservs largely because I get such a high volume of email already. I don't have time to respond to many of my friends, let alone listserv postings. I find email to be most functional in my life for brief messages, such as "meet you at 3 p.m." or "Did you see last night's episode of Xena?" I guess I see email as something to be used functionally rather than for intensive intellectualization (although I have certainly used it for both).
Due to the limitations of ASCII text, it is often *very* difficult to determine the emotional thrust of a person's statements, which makes email pale in comparison to in-class discussions. Email lacks the energy of face-to-face conversation, or even the vocal nuances apparent over the phone.
Email is just too easy to misconstrue, ignore or delete, and that is why I don't feel that listservs are often taken seriously or used to the fullest advantage by students (myself certainly included).
One person didn't want to post to the listserv, but did tell me their views in person:
They did not like posting to the listserv because they felt it was "too public" and at the same time, not well enough used by the class.
They suggested to encourage use of the listserv starting the semester with a two-week period in which daily postings to the listserv were mandatory for every student. After that, it would be up to the individual.