Learning Environment 

--Michael Day, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology 

In composition, I have seen the most benefit from using networked discussion tools for the invention stage of the writing process. While one person might benefit from freewriting, when 2 to 5 people bounce ideas off each other on a topic, there is a process of synergy that occurs, and the ideas are generated and developed by participants quickly. When you say something, it reminds me of something I want to say, which in turn reminds another person, and the exploration of a topic can be fairly exhaustive if several good minds are engaged. And since all discussion is recorded, students can go back through transcripts to isolate the key ideas and patterns of words which might be used in a more formal piece of writing. (next entry) 

--George Otte, Baruch College/CUNY 

About a decade ago, I got interested in real-time dialoging (as it was often called back then). In the eighties, there was a fair amount of discussion about how students could be anarchic and mutually abusive--stunningly politically incorrect--in synchronous conversation. But I never found that to be a problem for the simple reason that I had their messages appear under their log-in names (except in rare cases--when I wanted their candid take on a text I had used experimentally, for instance). My reason was simple: I was focusing much of my work on basic writers, and for them ownership is key. For various reasons, they especially needed to feel that everything that came from them--from celebrated insights to disconcerting errors--was "owned" by the individual who originated it. And though some were clearly more adept than others in on-line discussions, I never heard a student ask to be anonymous or pseudonymous, even on occasions when I posed the option to them. I think this "owning" of discourse is vital in discussions, not least of all for students who find their contributions transforming their sense of the roles they could play in class. One ESL student told me, memorably, "On-line I have no accent." (I'm not sure that was true--but that she thought it so was important.) 

Another issue I'm aware of from talking to other instructors is the size of discussions. Sometimes a large discussion serves certain purposes--I'll never forget one BW class's reaction when I walked into class after the session we had spent in the lab (on InterChange) and unrolled the printed-out transcript on continuous-feed paper, saying, "You guys say you can't write? Then what's this?" But I think for the most part that conferences work best with half a dozen to a dozen participants (with the latter representing a kind of outside limit on manageability and full all-'round engagement). I'm also a great believer in having students create their own conferences on topics of their own choosing--and do the discursive work it takes to get others to join in. (next entry)