Figure 1: Dialogue represented as a proportion of total list activity
| Australian Journal of Educational Technology 1999, 15(2), 117-135. |
AJET 15 |
This paper reports the main findings from a study of two mailing lists or listservs: Oz-Teachers and UK-Schools[1], used by teachers in Australia and the United Kingdom to communicate electronically with each other. Typically, communications were characterised by text messages that posed questions or offered answers; by 'threads' of discussion based around single or combined themes; and by statements of information. The content of these messages was almost always either technical or educational, the former centred on hardware or software issues; the latter on concerns with the use of technologies in teaching and learning.The study found that there is a possibility in the use of mailing lists, to create vital, energetic and occasional communities for professional development activities, building curriculum and information resource libraries and facilitating informal communicative networks, serving the social, professional and personal needs of teachers. The type of lists investigated here were unmoderated, self serving and self censoring, and they appeared to work well for a majority of the list membership. Topics of postings and the willingness to engage them fluctuated as the list communities matured. In particular, some dialogue displayed elements of a critical dimension - a necessary precursor to developing serious, reflective, engagement with practices, theory and research that should accompany any professional development process.
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The Internet is, paradoxically, both a physical and virtual embodiment of computers and people. In particular, it is a social construction, where people live, play and work. A listserv is a commonly available Internet technology that provides a computer-mediated forum ('mailing list', or 'list') for written dialogue in the form of messages or 'posts'. To participate in a list you need to apply to become a member; instructions for both joining a list and managing your activity once a member are similar across most mailing lists - in particular, there is a commonly shared but largely informal set of rules for participation (a 'netiquette'). These rules are generally learned by experience, observation and from direct advice; they can also be sighted, in some lists, by reference to an electronic archive set aside for such information by the list owner or originator. Such archives might also house all messages sent to the mailing list by individuals for later referencing. A list can function in either unmoderated or moderated forms - a moderated list is one where messages are subject to vetting by the list owner before being circulated on the list; whereas an unmoderated list allows all messages to be posted directly to members of the list from someone other than the list owner.
The following are examples of postings or part-postings, that fall into one of six major categories described in Table 2. All postings occurred on either Oz-Teachers or UK-Schools over the twelve month period of the study. For some categories, two examples are provided, for clarification.
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Firstly, Karen Place, be not afraid to express your opinion in this debate. The day someone is strung up for expressing their opinion will be a sad day indeed. Heaven forbid. I know many people feel strongly about their point of view however I also think we are all intelligent enough to separate the issue from personalities. Thank you Martyn James for opening up such a lively debate which has evoked approximately 30 responses so far where people have been prompted to take fingers to keyboard over this issue. I'm sure we have all benefited from this discussion even if it has just made us think about the important issue of computer resource distribution and usage in schools. Having contributed my two cents worth earlier on in the debate, I have watched it See-saw between and even combine the two concepts. It has also added to my knowledge of the situations in schools.
I have a group of yr. 9 students who are keen to work on an art project in collaboration with an Aussie school, via the INTERNET. We live in Europe so our experiences are quite different to yours. WE could perhaps develop art work on a common theme, scan in our picture, be critics for each other, and finally mount an internet ART GALLERY. INTERESTED? LETS HEAR FROM YOU
It would seem that the maturation process in these lists have certain identifiable aspects. For example, maturation included a growth in the core of membership - those members who maintained an active interest in the list, by either making postings to the list on a regular basis, or who repeatedly used the list for professional activities, such as resourcing teaching, or for references to curriculum projects or for posing questions. At the same time, one witnessed a constantly changing peripheral membership - those who joined for a short time and then left, or those who joined but made little on-going use of the list. Some of the latter included university students who were pursuing studies in education, and who were evidently encouraged to join by their lecturers (who were presumably members of the relevant list), or perhaps by fellow students, but who made little or no use of the lists thereafter. This phenomenon seemed to be especially true for Oz-Teachers.
Furthermore, maturation also included developments in the so-called 'lurker' population. Lurkers were members who made use of the lists by reading postings but who did not make postings themselves. The act of lurking was really a passive use of the list, with lurking apparently being a preferred way of working with or using lists for large numbers of members. Whilst not all list members wished to post messages to the list, most of these still used the list for professional reasons - obtaining information, keeping abreast of issues and dialogue and using references to projects, ideas and literature given in postings. Lurking was not necessarily a mark of immature members (ie. those who didn't yet have the necessary confidence to make a posting) but rather a preferred approach to apprenticing oneself to the culture of a list; and whilst some members remained lurkers for prolonged, even indefinite, periods, others perhaps began to make postings on a regular or occasional basis. Importantly, however, lurking was not to be seen simplistically as a behaviour of naive list members; and neither was the dichotomy between active and passive users of a list a static picture - it was dynamic, and movement between activity and non-activity for many individual list users was very fluid.
Interestingly, in both UK-Schools and Oz-Teachers but especially in the latter, members were actively encouraged to make postings. Active members appeared to assume that passive use of a list was a sign of immaturity and that all list members should become active - in fact, the list owner in Oz-Teachers advised all new members that an introductory message was expected of those joining the list. There is it seems, no justification for this: the passive members interviewed from both lists indicated, without exception, that they gained value from their membership of the list without feeling it necessary to make postings. Further, all admitted to feeling anxious about making a posting but said that they were likely to do so. Interestingly, a majority of interviewees felt there was some pressure from other list members to make a posting and that this heightened their anxiety about doing so.
Maturation in list activity could also be seen in the content of list postings, where messages of a trivial nature were tolerated less and occurred less; and the form of messages increasingly followed the conventions dictated in general rules of 'netiquette' (see Table 3), or those created by the list members or owner themselves, both through practice and sometimes as part of a policy statement. Maturation was also marked by the establishment of a list archive (which both Oz-Teachers and UK-Schools had), together with a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) database, to which new members could be referred, to obtain information on subjects that have already been discussed or referenced in the course of various postings.
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UK-Schools and Oz-Teachers had been born out of a personal commitment to the use of technologies in education. In the case of UK-Schools, this commitment was much in evidence in many of the list owners' own postings to the list, which periodically reminded list members of the nature, purpose and 'rules' that governed the use of the list. These postings left in no doubt as to who was the final arbiter in members' disputes or the final authority in deciding errant uses of the list by outsiders (eg. commercial advertisers), or by list members who might 'misuse' the list by, for example, posting messages which lay outside 'legitimate topic areas'. In this sense, UK-Schools did not appear to transcend its origins, and there was a real sense in which the boundaries of the list continued to be set by the ideals and values of one person - the list owner. This fact sits uneasily with the nature and rhetoric of the Internet, which operates against control and boundaries, whether by individuals or systems (such as governments). It is difficult to determine how far the stamp of ownership dictated the actual practice of dialogue on UK-Schools (ie. would the nature of use of the list have been different if there was a less interventionist owner?); but nonetheless, the characteristics of that stamp were very much in evidence, and often echoed by the sentiments of vocal list members: that is, there was evidently no dissent to the values imposed by the list owner, or if there was, the list didn't seem to get to hear about it. Indeed all interviewees were positive about the management of the list, with one member referring to the list owner as a 'benevolent autocrat'.
Oz-Teachers, unlike UK-Schools, did seem to outgrow the immediate control of its owners, despite or perhaps because of, a greater amount of direction in list policy, establishing the list as part of a wider approach to investigating the use of the Internet for professional support and development. From an examination of postings, the list owner rarely involved herself directly in moderating dialogue or messages. The exceptions to this included protracted periods of dialogue which over a period of several days, deteriorated to adverse personal comments; and again, where there emerged a wide-ranging disagreement amongst list members as to the value or appropriateness of student postings[2].
List membership as of July 1997, was 560 for UK-Schools, and 1071 for Oz-Teachers. The majority of members for Oz-Teachers originated in Australia, with a small number coming from Denmark, France, the United Kingdom, Canada and America - altogether less than 1% of total members appeared to have originated outside Australia, with surprisingly none coming from New Zealand. Moreover, a large number of list members appeared to be students, although it is almost impossible to quantify this assertion by simply viewing a listing of members' email addresses[3]. Conversely, there was a much greater spread of countries represented on UK-Schools, including Norway, Canada, America, Portugal, Italy, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Brazil, as well as many eastern European and African countries. Up to 15% of members originated in non-United Kingdom countries. Understandably, there was also a greater representation in individual postings of non-United Kingdom content material, although most of these were usually concerned with providing information (on, for example, curriculum projects and European funding opportunities) or inviting participation in school-based project work, rather than initiating or contributing to dialogue.
It is difficult to determine why Oz-Teachers was particularly insular and UK-Schools more global in membership over the period of this research, although one reason might be found in a policy of use statement for Oz-Teachers (part of a 'welcome' message that appeared in the first posting to the list, on 28 February 1996, and subsequently posted to all members on joining), where the list was clearly described as being intended for Australian teachers:
The list is open and not moderated at this stage, though a list manager checks addresses and traffic in case school students accidentally use the list. An online community of Australian teachers will reach its potential if many teachers contribute to the dialogue and post regularly to the list. Please use this list to talk with Australian teachers.UK-Schools also had a longer heritage, with the first posting being made on 10 December 1994 - this might also help to explain the more global nature in the spread of its members.
What has clearly emerged from this study into Oz-Teachers and UK-Schools, is the notion that these lists do operate as cultures, where culture is something that is collectively created and resides, dynamically, in the constructed meanings of a particular community. In this sense, the culture of a list is generated by its membership through the meanings given to collective practices - the practices of a community. In another yet related sense, it was possible to discern in both Oz-Teachers and UK-Schools, but particularly in the former, the operation of 'cultural capital', a term coined by Bourdieu (1988), where the capital of a culture is perceived to be that which is held to be of value, and which can be accumulated, earned and exchanged (Bourdieu, 1988). The capital within the cultures of Oz-Teachers and UK-Schools was that of expertise, experience and knowledge, and in the context of a variety of postings and dialogues on these lists, one was able to witness the negotiation of cultural capital, and the clear divisions that occurred between those with capital and those without.
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However, this is not to suggest that in all threads or dialogues, reflective and critical perspectives arise; indeed, an analysis of postings which constituted such threads on Oz-Teachers for example, quickly demonstrated this was not the case. But there is an increased chance that these perspectives will be found, as part of a 'conversation' between two or more participants, and where there is an interaction between views, understandings and ideas on a single topic or theme. Indeed, this notion characterises previous findings from research into computer conferencing (Henri, 1992; Riel & Harasim, 1994), and underpins current assumptions about appropriate models of learning, especially for professional development (Schon, 1987), and teacher education (Hatton & Smith, 1995); and also for adult learners (Laurillard, 1993).
The relative activity in each of the lists, Oz-Teachers and UK-Schools for the period of this investigation is summarised in Table 4. The activity of Oz-Teachers was considerably and consistently greater than that of UK-Schools, a difference that was not adequately explained by the discrepancy in relative memberships (ie. more members do not necessarily mean more postings). Even turning to an analysis of the relative proportions of total messages that occurred on each of the lists as threads, or extended dialogue, the differences remained noticeable (see Figure 1): dialogue occurred more frequently and in greater proportions on Oz-Teachers than on UK-Schools. It is possible then, although possibly dangerous, to suggest that Oz-Teachers worked better as a community of learners within a professional development context, as a direct result of its heightened activities, but more importantly, because of the greater number of threads or dialogues that occurred therein. However, this is a theme that I shall return to in the conclusion to this paper.
Figure 1: Dialogue represented as a proportion of total list activity
Oz-Teachers and UK-Schools operated as computer-mediated communities in the making, being shaped and led by the individual members of those communities. These virtual communities operated at a number of different levels - at the level of professional development, social grouping, resource and advice centre, political movement - and overarchingly as a Discourse, in the sense that Gee (1990) writes about discourse:
A Discourse is a sort of identity kit which comes complete with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular social role that others will recognise... Discourses are ways of being in the world, or forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, social identities, as well as gestures, glances, body positions and clothes. (Gee, 1990 142)The lists were both ostensibly about professional development, about teachers learning about aspects of teaching centred on the use of new technologies. But of course, they were much more than this - they operated by virtue of their membership, as communities, both in a sociological and a situated sense. Both Oz-Teachers and UK-Schools had their owners, key members (the ones most visible and active, through frequent postings), moderating influences, power-plays, politics, rules (tacit and explicit), rule-keepers, core members, peripheral members and silent (passive) members. However, although these lists operated sociologically, they were more readily identifiable as communities of situated practice. For example, both lists had the indelible mark of practising teachers - they were used by teachers to talk and share with other teachers, issues fundamentally (but not always) concerned with using new technologies in classrooms. The culture created in these lists was the culture of teachers as professionals. But the two lists also had cultures of their own, each different to the other in small yet important ways, defined by the practices evident within each list. First time membership of either Oz-Teachers or UK-Schools clearly involved an apprenticeship, gradually acquiring the knowledge and skills of the particular practices within the list, using strategies such as observation, participation (interaction) and role playing, and finally becoming completely enculturated within the adopted practices. So, in this sense, we find in both lists the 'communities of practice' that Lave and Wenger (1990) describe in their conceptualisation of situated cognition.
By and large, discussion and information posted to both Oz-Teachers and UK-Schools had the effect of legitimising and informing, operationally, what occurred and what didn't occur, in the name of technology use, and especially Internet use, in schools. In this sense the lists worked well, providing useful communities within which teachers could work and play. They also functioned to induct teachers into the practices of computer mediated communication. In addition there were a range of postings where questions were raised regarding applications of educational technologies, from perspectives outside the immediate 'how-to' or 'what-to' pedagogical culture established in the list. This suggests the lists provided the means for reflection and reflexive practice - indeed, many of the teachers interviewed suggested this was a strength of the lists, particularly those who were part of Oz-Teachers.
In addition, however, some postings, usually those belonging to a thread, served to reorientate the operational dialectic in the list, and established a more critical perspective. Messages A and B, below, provide an example of this process, where the first posting (A) re-focuses a 'how-to' discussion that has previously occupied the list (ie. 'how-to' use computers with students with learning disorders), a discussion which gathers momentum and is the impetus for new, critical, views to emerge on an old topic. Message B is an example of one direction in which this debate subsequently moves, where a personal reflection on the writing process is linked to wider literary practices. However, these types of postings were certainly in a minority and sat somewhat uneasily amongst the majority.
In order to be able to participate effectively and productively in any social practice, including that developed in mailing list communities, it is necessary to be socialised, or encultured, into that practice. But social practices and their meaning systems are always selective and sectional; they represent particular interpretations and classifications. Unless individuals develop the grounds for selection and the principles of interpretation they are merely socialised or enculturated into the meaning system and unable to take an active part in its transformation. The critical dimension in mailing list activities is reached when participants do not only participate in a practice and make meanings within it, but rather in various ways, transform and actively produce it. It is at this point that the list is operating at full potential, and when the opportunities for growth in the context of individuals' professional development is maximised.
In terms of a conceptual learning model, the critical dimension is a second-order phenomenon, that can only occur after learning experiences in both the operational and cultural dimensions (see Figure 2). Moreover, learning in the critical dimension has an effect on learning in both operational and cultural dimensions, fully contextualising the relation-ship knowledge has to a particular culture or context, thereby leading to an understanding of its appropriateness. Without a critical dimension, knowledge cannot be transformed to have a wider or more universal application.
Figure 2: A conceptual model of the Operational, Cultural and Critical modes of learning
Oz-Teachers and UK-Schools work well, for the most part, in their current form. However, there are other list formats that have been used to engender dialogue, particularly dialogue of critical dimensions, more purposefully. For example, lists have, for some time, been used as 'institutionally sanctioned spaces' as a component of undergraduate and graduate level university courses (Bakardjieva & Harasim, 1997, p. 1121). Similarly, IT-Forum[5] is a list which periodically publishes formal papers, specially written by leading academics in the field of instructional technology, to create a forum for discussion between members of the list and the author of the paper, over a (usually) two week period (Reiber, et al., 1997). In these contexts, dialogue is more structured and arguably provides for greater critical dialogic engagement with the texts of postings (Bakardjieva & Harasim, 1997; Harris & Wambeam, 1996). In this sense, it is reasonable to suppose that as a supplement to Oz-Teachers, one or more lists could be created that provide for more structured discourse. Certainly, this presents a promising professional development model to develop purposeful, new and virtual communities, that bridge the professional gaps that exist between traditional communities of practice.
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It is also published, in full, in: Lankshear, C., Bigum, C., Green, B., Wild, M., Morgan, W., Snyder, I., Durrant, C., Honan, E., & Murray, J. (1997). Digital rhetorics: Literacies and technologies in education-current practices and future directions: Issues and innovations. (Vol. 3). Canberra, Australia: Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs.
Also see http://www-business.cowan.edu.au/rhetorics/
| Author: Martyn Wild, Senior Research Fellow, School of Information Systems, Edith Cowan University, Churchlands, Perth, Western Australia 6018. Tel: +61 8 9273 8349; Fax: +61 8 9273 8332 Email: m.wild@cowan.edu.au Please cite as: Wild, M. (1999). The anatomy of practice in the use of mailing lists: A case study. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 15(2), 117-135. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet15/wild.html |