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Adjusting to Cohort Activities
This is a response to Gillian White's discussion thread about early adopters and beta-testers.
Many of those new to the Landing perceive their role as newcomer; as newcomers, their role is to explore the Landing's tools and features, and then evaluate it in terms of their previous experiences with other tools. The introductory stage reminds me of the foreigner in a foreign land, drawing from their previous experiences and linguistic knolwedge to make their way.
Oftentimes, this period of adjustment is very frustrating -students expect to categorize the majority of the tools and features in terms of the previous tools they have encountered, and become ambivalent with the elements that do not fit in to their previously constructed set of expectations.
The jump from Moodle to AU landing, for example, from the perspectives of many newcomers, is perceived as an unnecessary shift. Why force me to make the changes? they ask. I can get by just fine with what I have already learned, why do I have to change/update my knolwedge and skills?
I understand the frustrations felt by many newcomers. I lived in Poland and worked as an English teacher during the dramatic social and economic and political changes from a socialist to a mixed market society in the early to mid 1990's.
I spent a lot of time in a disoriented and ambivalent state, trying to comprehend what I was seeing in terms of my previous experiences, and failing mostly. I repeatedly ran into challenges: the language is fundamentally different in many ways - though Polish is using the same alphabet (mostly) as English.
I spent a period of time judging harshly - I was perpetually annoyed by poor customer service, the lack of product choice, the strange ways open markets worked, the fact I was paid in cash in million dollar zloty bills each month after lining up for half an hour for one person to hand it over in an envelope that did not have my name on it. It bugged me.
The adjusting phase is a necessary process, and newcomers to unfamiliar environments need to account for these feelings as expected.
Most learners are introduced to the AU landing as part of their course work. Many learners might already have some experience with Moodle, having taken other courses using that tool. But for some, being required to participate in a "new" social network is a daunting task, on top of trying to figure out how to complete their coursework and assignments, and then get their assignments in on time. Thus, most students are confronted with a course blog, an instructor's blog, their own blog, peers' blogs, a wiki, and are quite frankly overwhelmed.
Oftentimes, students adjust to what they consider the most important site of activity, the group blog, initially neglecting the other venues 'to get the work done'.
All these different learning groupings are like classrooms, and students slowly adjust to the changing demands of these different virtual learning spaces.
Adjusting is the first step in the development of one's own personal viable system model (VSM). We make decisions as learners about how to get the grades we want, picking up cues from peers and from the instructor. Sometimes, learners need to activiely ask questions and voice their concerns. Oftentimes, the students are silent, not because they don't have much to say, but are unsure where to express their opinions, and wait for cues from other peers or from their instructor.
Adjusting is the hardest stage of adaptation to activity as an online learner. One needs to approach the adjusting stage from the perspective of an autonomous learner, willing to take risks, and explore the network tools, and the resources and supports available outside the cohort. This is the rub, the crux of the issue: to succeed within AU landing, learners need to shift their role as dependent learners taking cues from their instructor, to being independent, self-regulated learners, and taking the initiative and adopting the features to meet their own needs.
Many newcomers adopt a single role, or conform to the role expected of them. The more active, social learners engage in discussions, and their participation is perceived by some instructors as the ideal, the most effective way of using the Landing within courses. It is just one way students can choose to use the Landing, and other roles need to be encouraged as well by faculty.
Glenn Groulx
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Glenn, what a great analogy! I lived abroad for several years as well and I can recall that frequent frustration of wondering "Why don't they do things our way?" It's such an arrogant question, of course, but hard to resist when you're wondering why a bus is often three hours late, or a clerk is being rude to you, or needed products never seem to be in stock.
A key difference though is that you and I were LIVING in these other countries - we had committed to jobs, arranged for housing, and had nascent friendships that made our adjustments just a little bit easier. But until Landing users are committed users, they are just vacationers. They can log off quickly and choose never to return. They haven't invested anything in the system yet.
So how do you get them to return and invest themselves and receive true value from Landing? That's where good design practices come in - for me anyways. Once the system is designed in such a way that it draws users in and provides both immediate and ongoing value, then users will invest themselves easily and quickly.
Thanks for both the post and the trackback! I wish I'd been notified of it - lucky I found it.
Hello Gillian,
I agree that the both the effective design is crucial to facilitate commitment of users, and I also think that users adopt a number of path-making activities that suit their unique requirements often not specifically anticipated by the designers.
In this case, I use the Wire to monitor updates of general activities on the Landing. (newcomers seldom post their new content on the wire initially).
I want to track new users' contributions, but instead of waiting for the design feature to catch up with my requirement, I find a work-around. I realize that going into the activity tab and tracing back all the activities over the past 72 hours is sometimes tedious, but quick scans of both the wire and the activity tabs usually serves its purpose of "jigging".
I use the metaphor of jigging to identify what I do to collect useful information sources within AU Landing. I use the activity tab, unlike the Wire, to jig (search for and collect) new peers to follow. I then add these individuals to my following list, place them in specific following collections, and then the updates flow in.