| Chapter 1: | Chatrooms and Learning Behaviors |
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In the rush to move online, however, it is easy to forget that online education requires more than simply taking existing course materials and using them in this online medium. Even though online learning may superficially resemble a traditional face-to-face classroom, computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies have different affordances than face-to-face communication, and these must be considered when designing online learning environments (Bruckman, 1999). A number of variables influence, in complex ways, educational success in the face-to-face classroom (Brown, 1992); online educational environments face the same challenges, but with a different set of variables.
The interaction of new and altered pedagogical variables makes the design of online learning environments complicated. For example, how does the choice of media influence educational discussions? What is the role/impact of discussion moderators? What is the influence of previous face-to-face interaction on the development of relationships and trust among the students? Do avatars convey necessary social cues, or do they get in the way of the ideas? Can photographs help promote team-oriented relationships or do they promote (perhaps subconscious) bias? As if these design choices were not challenging enough on their own, these choices interact in complicated ways with one another and with more traditional pedagogical choices (e.g., the design of educational activities).
Before rushing into online education, we need to better understand how to design appropriate online learning environments.