We have been analyzing chats for communicating ideas.
Some positive aspects are: equal access to input. That is everyone gets a chance to explain their ideas. I have noticed that when we do an oral classroom discussion, many people don't participate or some talk most of the time. Do we notice this less in chat discussions? Everyone has equal access because you are writing messages. Even if you type slowly, you can still refer back to a question and you have a chance to turn the discussion.
According to Clark and Brennan's theory of communicative grounding, which means that people respond differently based on the medium of communication. Honeycutt, 2001, found that students felt that comments written in emails were more serious than comments written in chats. Do you agree? What accounts for this perception? Is it the nature of chat which is quick, short response?
Please analyze your impressions on chatting and how useful they are in providing feedback and the quality of feedback as compared to emails.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Professor,
ReplyDeleteI'm still separating internet-at-large from chat in my head, so my first instinct was to say that I think there's still plenty of non-egalitarian interaction, and some people get more say than others. But upon thinking about it some more: You're right, really, and I think it has to do with how we experienced chatting.
We were in a classroom among equals, and knew we had to contribute to the chat in order to get credit. Writing is usually less intimidating than talking in front of people, and it's virtually impossible for one person to dominate the conversation, since there are enforced pauses while one composes one's next message.
I suspect that this would be different in a different kind of chatroom; the internet tends to have a hierarchy based on how long one's inhabited a given community, how well one understands and uses the lingo of the group, and how well one's views mesh with the majority. I imagine this sort of thing would extend to chatrooms online.
Then again, I could be wrong, and it might be egalitarian all around.
In my opinion, E-mails are generally more serious and contain more content compared to a chat. Chats are composed of short sentences and ideas. I think chats are an easy way to communicate effectively.
ReplyDelete