What is “real” conversation anyway?

For the last few months I have been meeting exclusively in IM sessions for my class on online learning theory. Every wednesday, we all make sure to log in to a javascript based chat window in a moodle system to discuss the readings and continue the conversation that has been taking place inside of a few discussion forums.

This last two weeks, I was the designated facilitator for the class and we were concentrating on articles that related to the use of WIKIs for collaborative knowledge construction. In addition, we were trying to establish the purpose and scope of an actual wiki site were will build with the rest of the semester that could possibly be published.

The first time I “led” a synchronous discussion with 9 or so folks, it didn’t go all that well. The second time was even more stressful. As I would throw out questions to the chat, they always seemed a bit off topic. When we would ask questions like: what should the topic be? A swarm of ideas would come in with very little real conversation taking place (IMHO). For the last 15 minutes of the chat I found myself wanting to get a smaller group face to face, where I would be much more comfortable.

Now the funny thing is that we did meet face to face and a wonderful discussion arose. I had a conversation with one of the students that was also struggling with hte format. We were wondering if it was even possible to study online tools while only living “inside” of them. We both felt that the quality of the discourse that happens when people are in the same room was somehow more natural and productive. We also expressed frustration with the lack of non verbal conversation that is provided by gesture and tone during a conversation when you can both see and hear someone while they are talking.

These concerns were raised in our face to face time and I was surprised that few of the other students couldn’t disagree more. On student in particular spends quite a bit of time online. I believe she even made the statement that she actually prefers text chat over f2f because it moves along faster (more conversations at once), it cant be reviewed (scrolling up in the chat window) and so forth.

My sister in law also seems to agree. She has friends all over the world that she chats with using IM on a dialy basis. For a time, I would even say that she spent more time online chatting than in “real” conversation.

IM style chat does have a number of advantages:

It is non-geographical

It records the conversation

It works wonderfully when you want to include text/links/images

My question is therefore, can a person’s communication skills improve over this medium so they can communicate non-verbally? The evidence of communication device history seems to see so. Have you ever seen someone who is stil getting used to the idea of a telephone? I know that is rare these days, but I know that for people that saw this technology come into use after they had already learned how to communicate, it was a real adjustment. Closer to home, I still encounter people that don’t understand the social norms of email. It is as though they are writing letters with a fountain pen that will be carried by horse!

In a conversation I had with a group over at Wisconsin Public TV, one participant kept saying that despite the new technology, we all need to learn how to work in “real” conversation. So I asked, what is real conversation anyway? Why is face to face any more real than any other format?

I am beginning to understand that each mode of communication requires the development of skills in the use of that mode.

The scary part is that you might be an expert on the podium talking to thousands, but unable to hold a decent diner conversation.

As McLuhan said, new media not only changes how we communicate, but it changes us as well.

Social Agendas in Education

This week my online learning class read a number of papers that addressed the idea of decentralized organizations, social agendas and the group theory that emerges.

I once had a conversation with an educator, Katherine Dang, about the consequences that result from schools becoming political. In summery, her view is that this is a dangerous endevour. For starters, most of us have realized by now that politics has the ability to politicize everything around itself. When a school becomes the platform for political views, the students can become indoctrinated without knowing. They may begin voicing the positions of the local school board as their own, simply because it is the only opinion they have every heard. The fact of the matter is that many of the current political topics such as health care, abortion and Iraq do not have simple answers. That is exactly why they are debated. However when the teacher or school takes a stance these options are perceived as fact. When the same person who teaches 2+2=4 begins embedding their views about religion, economics, etc. the students will naturally be swayed.

I’m not sure why this frightens me so. I guess I’m scared that government makes a lousy moral compass. I fear that the pursuit of political correctness might not lead our children in the best way, science may not contain all the answers, and that the loudest voices in politics may not be the wisest.

Case in point: I was with some 7th grade girls this summer who were doing an after-school program with my wife, Sarah. We had about 20 wonderful young ladies over for a BBQ at our house to celebrate the closing of the program where they learned about some of the “old arts” of handmade goods. During the night, some of the girls were talking about how they had recently had a day of silence to honor the closet homosexuals among them that were forced to remain silent about their sexual orientation in school. The girls explained this topic to me with convincing emotion, using well crafted sentences and examples that obviously did not come from their own reasoning. I listened and asked them questions, concluding that for most of these girls, sex was about the last thing on their minds. So why is it that they had already formed views on paticular sexual issues?

I know this is a complicated subject. That is why the last person I would like to have involved is a teacher that will only know one of these girls as a single student in a single class period of a single year. The real investment of the teacher to deal personally with any of them is just too shallow to discuss topics as important as these. I love that the school has taken it upon themselves to promote equality and the value of all people, but when does it simply become political?

In the worse case, the government will celebrate the knowledge of humankind to the point of being not only the end but the means to all things. The current state of science will become the absolute truth in all things and individuals will exist solely to serve the state. My time visiting auschwitz in Germany and the killing fields of Cambodia have taught me that politics do not always hold the answer.

So how do we give to our student the best of what we have without creating a feedback loop of knowledge that may backfire?

Who is able to aid in teaching how to reason about moral dilemmas when we all have different opinions?

Whose epistemology will win when the state is the source of moral reasoning?

I’m starting to think that it would have been better just to talk about decentralized organization theory.