by Adam, Audrey, & Priscilla
Design challenge
How might we create a means for current and former participants of CI 597 to interact as well as share knowledge and interests about disruptive technology?
Research methods
- Interviews with current & former instructors of CI 597
- Interviews with past students
- Interviews with students currently taking CI 597
- Self-documentation by designers
Summary of research
Community Beyond the Classroom’s Four Walls: (Instructor perspective)
- The vision of Disruptive Technologies as it started to become a community was to maintain relationships beyond 15 weeks
- Original instructors wanted to find a way to “broaden the choir” to include others in the class conversation
- The unique population of this class allows for networking across communities
- There have been previous sparks of interest from students, instructors, & outside community but hasn’t led to anything concrete
- “I think there’s a HUGE opportunity there. But i think it would have to be very intentional in the design from week 1.” (Cole Camplese)
- “If you’re successful at creating the local community, i think then you can make the specific decision to try to bind the two experiences together.” (Cole)
One thing to consider is: “by trying to create this larger community would it inhibit the local community?” even if you started at week 1. “It might be too much [and at the expense of the local class community] to try to use the computer mediated environment to create that [overarching] community from the beginning. Maybe start at week 4 forward…?” (Cole) - “One of the teams has a facebook group and they’re doing all their work there. Because of the class, they’ve launched a [non-institutional] Yammer group [so they could have grads/alums be part of it] for this thing called “Cuddle Time” where they all get together once a week. They moved it into a digital space, I think because of the class.” (Cole)
Community Within the Class: (Instructor perspective)
- CI 597 is an interdisciplinary course with a mixture of practitioners and theorists with interests in technology, which creates a shared voice
- This class is about building bridges between practitioners and theorists which is rare to find in other courses
- “The core technology that [students are using to communicate] are Google Docs. There are others using other little social technologies like Reddit or Twitter or Google communities.” (Scott)
- As a student, when the class is over, it can feel as though the connection to the instructors and peers have been lost
- “Interactions with social media create relationships that don’t always exist in class” (Mike)
- “The challenge is that it inherently takes these classes more than a third of the semester to feel as though they are locally a community. I’ve even had my students explicitly write things like ‘this is the first class i’ve had where there’s been a free exchange back and forth, where it’s felt like i’m on the same footing as the professor.’ There’s a whole lot of unlearning that goes on in that class and I think the first third of the class is on unlearning. And then there’s a couple of week and then it just happens.” (Cole)
- “My students mean everything to me, with regard to that piece of my own identity [as an instructor]. This class is what keeps me sane and drives me to be [a] better [teacher]. I think my students see that I’m all in. And it helps them be all in. I do think that my own participation, regardless of my title or whatever, is a big part of their willingness to participate at the level that they do. Because they participate at an enormously high level and they are self-reporting to me that they are working harder in this class than they are in any of the other courses that they’re taking. And I don’t really know why that is. But I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we’re getting really real with each other in these conversations.” (Cole)
- “The [undergrad] community is much more F2F, and I’m very intentional about not trying to impact them as much outside of class because they have so many more courses [compared to graduate students].” (Cole)
Current Students and the Broader Community
- Each of the students interviewed shared a desire to participate in a broader Disruptive Tech community
- There was a consensus that asynchronous communication would be good setting for communication. “I think at the start, Twitter would be a great starting point for, like, an asynchronous setting where we can engage with the other class.” (Zach) “If it could be something where, like, you subscribe to a feed, or something, that like-minded individuals are already in that area, talking about that thing, it’d be easy.” (Dean)
- Students told us that a simple design with images would keep students interested and using our solution “I am an image guy. I like pictures and I like posting pictures. I like seeing pictures in text. I like that. I mean that’s just my learning style I guess. I get more out of it.” (Dean)
- Simplicity is crucial for past and current students who are more interested in design and less than technology. “I use Facebook, I use email, but that’s about it.” (Katie)
- Asynchronous communication could lead to synchronous communication where each class is broadcasted via Google Hangout or another method.
- Our solution would have to accept various levels of user interactivity. Some students would be heavy users while other students would be passive users (users who don’t post anything) and some users would fall in between. “I could see myself being each type of personality (passive user, moderate user, heavy user) depending on what we do.” “I’m not on the pulse of what’s going on. … I’m perfectly fine on giving feedback [on things in shared in the community].”(Katie)
Thoughts on Community and Digital Culture (Self-Documentation)
- Twitter feed offers a glimpse of the conversation taking place in the class going back to 2010
- Links and readings shared in the class were revisited – Could this be useful for current course assignments and discussions? (Priscilla)
- Students from previous iterations of the course rarely tweet to join current course conversations (Priscilla)
- Few attempts by students from previous courses to connect classmates after course ended (Priscilla)
- The class community develops out of the requirement, but we need to think about what makes us participate in communities voluntarily, without any requirements. Especially ones relating to education and/or career. (Audrey)
- As a team, we’ve used Google Docs for class work. We are required to use WordPress to publish our collective thoughts on our readings and research and comment on our peers’ work. Two of us voluntarily use Twitter for communicating outside of the class with each other and to larger communities, and one of us uses Reddit. Though we’ve now been required to use Twitter (with hashtags) as the tool to share thoughts, experiences, and have additional interactions while attending the TLT Symposium. Which of these mediums will continue to be used beyond our class remains to be seen. (Audrey)
- The use of hashtags or tags could be a good way for posts on either the class blog or Twitter would be helpful to track what is posted and mitigate against post getting buried and not read. (Adam)
- The fractured nature of this class’s backchannel is an obstacle for widespread usage. There would need to be a commitment to use one backchannel (either our solution or another) in order to have the highest level of inclusion. (Adam)
- Communities generally evolve naturally and voluntarily to become established. A small group tend to be the core that drives discussion and interaction. Trust and respect are core factors too. (Audrey)
Current understanding of the problem
- Instructors have sought avenues to address this problem in the past with no set resolution – advertising has been a challenge
- Whatever the platform/process/tool looks like, sustainability needs to be taken into account (“future-proofing”)
- Motivation to join & participate needs to be addressed
- Social participation through social networks already exists on a small scale
- It will need to be intentional in the design of the class, potentially providing some WIIFM-incentive (what’s in it for me) for past participants.
- There is gap between intention and reality.
Zach Lonsinger says
This is an interesting post and I’m really intrigued by your findings and your solution for this design challenge. One idea I had while reading “Thoughts on Community and Digital Culture (Self-Documentation)” was revolving around hashtags. This would require commitment from the instructors, but what if each assignment was given a unique hashtag throughout the semester? These hashtags would be the same spanning years/classes, but would be unique to the assignment. I know I’m getting ahead of myself here and thinking solution-minded, but stick with me here. These hashtags wouldn’t be part of any required posting, but they would just be there. And if these hashtags are visible for each assignment, would this make it easier for students to post thoughts or their assignments on twitter with this unique hashtag, coupled with #ci597? Maybe, maybe not. But just an idea that jumped into my head while reading.
Brandon says
Seems to be coming along nicely. I can’t help but think more meatspace approaches to community coherence, such as breaking bread and clinking steins. What about an event (potluck perhaps) where current and former students could socialize? How could digital resources be integrated into something like this in a way that wasn’t done for the sake of doing it?
Isaac Jason Bretz says
I agree with Brandon that trying to make an entirely online community may be counter to the intent of the course and to the way people belong, feel, and participate. Perhaps former course students could come to class to share their current research interests related to technology and education. Maybe we could have a F2F reading group on current articles about tech and education. We could even have snacks.
Katie Bateman says
It’s a hard task to tackle, because you need to motivate people to do things with no outcome that benefits them directly. I know when facebook started it was a way to connect with people in your courses and you could “tag” (it wasn’t called that back then) your classes and see who else was in that class with you and communicate from there. There was motivation because you could find someone to steal notes from when you decided to nap instead of go to Chem. (Not that this a personal experience or anything.) So there was something in it at the beginning. How do you motivate people to be involved and not just “do the minimum”- a problem we notice in our challenge as well.
Leah Bug says
This is a very interesting design challenge. I agree with Katie that motivation is definitely an issue. I think people are so busy with their lives and other responsibilities that any type of community must be relevant and meaningful to the user. Whether that’s getting notes from someone, finding someone to collaborate with on a project, or giving/receiving help on a problem, there must be value within the designed space. Where there any questions about what users would specifically want out of a continued involvement with the group?
pul121 says
The design project investigates opinions of instructors and students about the disruptive technology course. I wonder if the design question is the intention of the course. It would make more sense for students to keep interacting after the course is ended than interactions between current and former students. However, this course do structure differently than most of the traditional courses on campus. I think this course definitely create a less aggressive environment for students to participate, broaden access for knowledge sharing and increase opportunities for critical thinking. I don’t know if it is possible that everyone will become an active contributor if the community is formed.
Dean says
I think this is a great idea. I don’t have much to offer, other than what I shared during my interview. Good work!
Michael Sean Banales says
This could be interesting, but I do think an inherent piece of the issue comes from the point Katie made in her interview about accessibility. We all use very different mediums to communicate. I have twitter only because of the assignment this last weekend, but I’m honestly not sure if I will ever frequent it again because it’s just not within my reach. Meanwhile, since I have the means to easily check Reddit, I frequent the PSU-Disruptive page all the time. I feel that finding an easily accessed and universally understood way of communicating may end up being one of the harder parts of the puzzle.
Koun says
I really like the idea of creating CoP that connects past and current students. Like you addressed, Motivation to join & participate will be what matter most to solve this problem since it should be voluntary, in particular for past students to keep in contact with the new students. The motive should be something beyond class-level (more points, incentive..).
dili optim says
I am continually invstigating online for tips that can benefit me. Thx!