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4. Findings and discussion
Evidence of the effectiveness of the simulated discussions employed as part of activity 1 in table 1 is in the form of students own contributions to the simulated discussions and qualitative data analysis of their answers to the two questions intended to encourage students to reflect on the pros and cons of working together remotely in groups using collaborative technologies. Furthermore, effectiveness is measured using the students own learning behaviours demonstrated through engagement in the simulated online experience with other students during the group based task as captured by the scribe (student observer).
The scribe provided interesting insights into the challenges of communicating without talking and the student’s own solutions to these as well as the student behaviours whilst engaging in the simulated discussion. There was a group who appeared reluctant to engage when presented with the activity. The students posted S1 "whose going first?" S2 “Not me!” S3 “not having the conversation it is hard to start!".
Different identification strategies were employed by students in the discussion, predominately group members used different colours to identify themselves whilst writing their posts and responses, others used numbers to identify themselves and noted this number on each question posted and responded to. A number of student groups drew cartoons as identifiers for their posts and responses. Some students wrote their own name on their posts and responses. A student group used shapes i.e. star, square, triangle and hexagonal as an identifier.
There was evidence of students adopting coping strategies to compensate for being unable to talk throughout the activity given the nature of the simulation. Some students frequently posted jokes that clearly demonstrated their difficulties faced when unable to communicate verbally. The use of jokes seemed to lighten the mood and created a sort of team spirit and a sense of relatedness. There were a few students engaged in conversations off topic i.e. S1 “r u going home after this?” S2 “yes but might stop over at a friend’s house you? S1 “Am catching da bus all the way to…yup!”
Emoticons too were frequently used by many student groups and some used images of funny faces. Others expressed themselves through writing messages on the post-it notes such as "now we are stuck because we can't communicate" "what else could there be?" Exclamation marks were used by some group members to communicate and emphasise a point. An observer noted the challenges of working as a group without verbal communication “it was hard to work as a group, we found it very difficult to communicate without talking”. This issue was commonly cited. Other student quotes on this theme included: “people lost interest very quickly because it was abnormal being in the same space and not being able to speak”.
Some student groups failed to follow the instructions as they posted multiple questions on one post-it note, this appeared to cause difficulty with turn-taking the students appeared disorientated and lost the thread of the discussion. For some, it was difficult when responding to other students’ posts in the simulation, maintaining the conversational thread was problematic. Such students failed to write on the post-it notes and/or to write each question on the white paper as instructed in table 1, hence, lost the thread which was evident in the posts and responses to the two overall questions posed as part of the simulated activity. The observer noted “no one took turns there was no co-ordination, different response times, and slower reactions to responses, in general many similar comments without knowledge of others”.
Martina Doolan
Other students went off topic and got bored with the simulation; the observer noted this was as a result of being unable to talk: S1”Do you reckon this could be boring?” S2 “it gets boring when we can’t talk!!”
It was also noted that some students participated more than others and others contributed less to the simulated discussion. There were individual students who influenced others responses by applying dominant behaviours such as: frowning, staring/ keeping direct eye gaze, these students overall used predominately eye and hand gestures. Other students expressed dominant behaviours by spreading out across the desk and at times, patting other group members on the arm. The use of capital letters in this analysis was also interpreted as a sign of dominant behaviour. Submissive behaviours was also a theme in this study. There were some student groups who demonstrated submissive behaviours by seeking approval through facial expressions and using emoticons, multiple question marks and specific phrases when contributing posts and responses such as "I really don't know if it would help but…".
Student’s responses to the two questions in table 1 notably (1) what problems does working remotely cause for team working? (2) What can be done about it? were intended to encourage students to reflect on the pros and cons of working together remotely in groups using collaborative technologies. Some overarching themes identified across groups included: Communication, Technology and Teamwork. Overall, there were more problems identified than solutions, the majority of problems cited related to Communication and Teamwork whilst using collaborative technology.
Examples of common problems cited regarding Communication include:
(S1) “Cannot talk or socialise together”, (S2) “questions won't be directly answered”
(S3) “It’s easy to misunderstand texts and emails”, (S4) “it is easy to get side tracked and lose track of exchanges”
(S5) “it might be hard for an individual to communicate their point of view to a number of people and for them to understand it and give good feedback. This may cause delay in decision making…”
(S6) “it is a lot more time consuming than face to face chat as you have to wait for the other person’s response which might be in an hour or a week” (S7) “language barriers and using abbreviations in text”.
Predominately the solutions cited to these concerns from across student groups included:
(S10) “communicate through instant messaging and video conferencing”, (S12) “have chat enabled so you can make contact easily”
(S23) “ensure people know the ground rules for emails etc.”, (S34) “make sure to meet face to face at least once a week/month”, (S60)”email feedback to colleagues”.
Citations of common problems regarding using Technology (incl. of Infrastructure) identified across groups include:
(S9) “If there is a network communication failure then all contact between users is lost, and so work will be temporarily disabled”
(S22) “some people may not be comfortable with technology” (S33) “not secure to send private and important communications online”
(S40) “software and hardware i.e. conference program, broadband or video conferencing may not be compatible”
Overall a lack of trust with the robustness and connectivity of the technology and concerns about security and loss of data were commonly cited as problematic. Solutions to these included:
(S22) “ensure to save the data on CDs, USBs etc. agree a format for data tracking”
(S40) “Use standard reliable equipment such as video conferencing and that this is efficient and does not break down”
(S54) “make sure technologies are compatible, discuss requirements and agree these, get resources needed”
Martina Doolan
(S60) “use chat rooms that store messages and allow users to respond no matter what time it is that way data will be saved”
Examples of problems cited which related to Teamwork include:
(S1) “you may not be doing as much work as other members”, (S22) “don't know what others have written is actually from them”
(S30) “not much motivation if working remotely alone”, (S46) “one or more group members might be slacking behind, yet the rest of the group wouldn't know cos they don't meet up regularly for meetings to show progress”
(S50) “distractions and perhaps less of the feeling to input to the team project as you will not see the reactions of the let-down team members”
(S56) “isolation as can't see people’s reactions and gestures, less discussion as a result, difficult to brainstorm ideas”
(S70) “Using online discussions group meetings will take longer than face to face as have to wait for a response and will disrupt team rapport i.e. "what do you think?" then waiting for the typed response”
(S78) “lack of social skills, be boring by yourself, no interaction with no one”.
There was evidence of a lack of trust with working remotely and the using technology to support team working.
Concerns regarding boredom and feelings of isolation were common. It was assumed that “remotely” implied
“working from home” and that the majority of people would take advantage of this situation by not doing the work and also incur distractions. Therefore, would not be productive and contribute to the teamwork. There was a consensus regarding the need to be “supervised” in some way and for team members to be accountable.
Suggestions of solutions to these perceived issues included:
(S10) “arrange weekly team meetings in person to talk about work undertaken on the project”
(S42) “install a webcam so that individuals can be monitored”
(S61) “make specific times so that group members can be contacted”
(S83) “use peephole type technologies to make sure members are working”
(S90) “have a manager team leader that sets deadlines for tasks and regularly telephones group members for updates”
The knowledge exchange activity provided valuable insights into the learners existing knowledge and skills of engaging with collaborative technologies. Also, the necessary support required by students to engage online in group based work was identified in addition to, the technologies that are currently in use by these learners as presented in table 2 and 3.
Table 2: Knowledge and support needed by learners
People to collaborate with me who will do the work How to reference, what is the Harvard Referencing System?
How to write i.e. essays, reports?
How to do abstraction?
How to work well in a group?
What to do if students in my group don’t do the work?
Time Management Confidence
Communications with people you haven't met How to keep track of my work?
Face to face communication I am better online
How to discuss in the potential problems which might occur in a project?
Express feelings and actions to each other
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Interestingly, the majority of contributions made by students regarding the knowledge and support needed relate predominately to study skills and dealing with people as well as themselves i.e. developing confidence as shown in table 2. In contrast, table 3 highlights the technological skills and applications/technologies that students are familiar with and can offer support in.
Table 3: Knowledge and support on offer by learner Camtasia
Smartphone use, all applications Podcasting and video production
Scratch programming Visual Basic and Java programming
Games
WhatsApp, Skype and Google Drive, Google Docs etc.
Wordle.com, to create Word Clouds Moodle, EBay
Multimedia Production
Video Production, Multimedia material, web design Blogs, Podcasts, Video Streaming
FaceBook, instant messaging Flickr
Instragram Smugmug, Shutterfly
Google Photos LinkedIn
Skype
Leadership and Management Photography, web design
5. Conclusion
Advances in technological development are evolving to accommodate changes in the Higher Education landscape. Educational practice has been slower to respond to the pace of change, which potentially creates a gap between the educator and the learner that in turn may be failing to meet the expectations of learners. This paper has shared student’s own use of technologies and highlighted skills that they can offer to support others in their learning, as well as offering an insight into the academic skills and knowledge necessary for these learners to help succeed in academia.
The findings presented of the learners lived experience of a class based paper simulation of an online discussion space intended to prepare students for an online group experience will go some way to help understand learners better. Universities are under increasing pressure to respond to the needs of the 21st century learner whilst at the same time, provide affordable and sustainable learning and teaching approaches that prepare learners to learn and encourage them to engage more fully in their learning.
The paper simulation presented is reusable, scalable and cost effective requiring limited resources and has been shown can support and encourage students to reflect on the potential pitfalls and ways to resolve these prior to working in an online collaborative learning environment. And, has done so through a “realistic” authentic learning experience without “real” consequences i.e. loss of marks. The simulation can be used to help students in the transition to online learning environments such as a wiki and/or discussion forum which requires students to interact and engage with others.
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