Dear all, thanks for the timely loading up of the assignment. Especially charmed I was by the presentation of group 1. I will have to force me not being inappropriately prejudiced by the impressing design. I like it. We are coming slowly to the end of this course which took you through various aspects of distance education we consider asfundamental: you need to know your professional history, the essential pedagogical aspects, the theoretical features of theprofessional discourse. You need to get an overview on hoe distance education is really implemented in practice and you must beable to form a judgment on what you would consider as good practice against the background of the professional discourse of thediscipline. There is a last activity in this course which I want to ask you knowing that after having just completed the last assignment, you maynot have enough stamina left to carry it through. This exercise ended up at the end of the course this time since as you may rememberwe had to reschedule the conference week with Boerje Holmberg. It is an exercise which invites you to reflect on the communicationformat of the seminar, asynchronous discussion. Originally this task was designed as a group task but given that you just reappearedout of the dungeons of your study group back to the classroom I decided that we should conduct the discussion in the open space ofthe class conference. T he issue to be discussed is the following: PROPOSER: Does the analysis of the discussion in this course provide sufficient evidence to support the motion that online conferences can produce equal or superior outcomes than discussions in traditional (i.e. face to face) seminars? OPPOSER: Does the analysis of the discussion in this course provide sufficient evidence to support the motion that online conferences are unlikely to produce superior or even similar outcomes than discussions in traditional (i.e. face to face) seminars?" The format of the discussion, as indicated by the labels 'proposer' and 'opposer of the motion', is that of a debating club. The rolesshould invite critical discussion. You should not aim at balanced judgment but to defend your position as proposer or to destroy therespective arguments as an opposer. In turn if you are a proposer you should recklessly dismantle the arguments the opposersadvance against your position, etc. - I randomly grouped you not knowing you preference. If you have a strong bias to one camp orthe other email me and I will edit the table putting you in the camp of your choice. (Use the smileys in your headers to signal to thereader from which camp the argument comes. The proposer is given the usually optimistic smiley while the opposer smiley includes aquestion mark to indicate the role of doubting Thomas licking the lips in satisfaction.) PROPOSER OPPOSER :-) Sherri L Anderson-Cherry :-? Cheryl Nadine Berthau :-) Anthony D Dauer :-? Bobbie J Dickerson :-) Brent A Elrod :-? Karen Ann Felus :-) Lenora B Giles :-? Alfred Jay Gould :-) Linda M Heil :-? Jennifer Erin Hoehn :-) Shyamala Iyer :-? Alan Jank :-) Lynn Hisae Lafferty :-? Cynthia J Leiser :-) Linda Lee Markham :-? Lisa M Mathey :-) Alexander Kofi Pianim :-? Latario Tausette Powell-Brown :-) Beverly L Schmalzried :-? Gloria Jean Skillman :-) Grady M Sutton :-? Marie A Wakefield :-) Richard N Walton :-? Brian M Weber :-) Willidean Wilkerson :-? Cynthia T Willets :-) Lester L Wingate The method of the debate should take note of the formulation of the motion which in both cases starts with a reference to the'analysis of the discussion in this course'. This means proposers merely expressing their pious views would make opposers laughonly. Arguments for whatever position should be supported by concrete evidence from this course. For instance, one may argue thatin online debates no one opposes the view of peers. You may bolster you view by reviewing one conference as a sample not findingany contradiction. To reject the argument proposers would have to find one or several instances where controversial views havebeen expressed. Hence, try as much as possible to relate arguments to empirical evidence. The one making the least number of comments in each camp is finally asked to take the role of a 'rapporteur' for the camp whichmeans summarizing the debate from the partisan view of the respective camp. The purpose of the debate is, as I said earlier, to take a step back from the managerial heights of institutional practice to reflect theconcrete experiences with the online learning format you have experienced in this course and you will experience in several variationsin the courses still to come. This should enable you to possibly tune your expectations or, possibly, to adjust your way ofparticipation.
Enjoy the debate. Thomas
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