Kairotic Design: Building Flexible Networks for Online Composition
Agency in the Timing of Learning Activities
Students also appreciated how the design of online learning gave them more agency in when they learned material. They liked being able to read/watch (and reread/rewatch) course materials and classmates' work at times convenient to them and at times most appropriate for their learning and composing processes. This is illustrated in an interview exchange between Brandon and Alexa that we quote at length because many important themes emerge:
Alexa: I’m taking ENG 112 right now, and I really wish it would have been like ENG 111 [online] because we go to class, and it's like "oh, here's how you write an introduction, a really great introduction" and it's helpful information, but I'm like if I could do this on my own time, like, in my room, I would learn it way better, and I could apply it to what I specifically needed to apply it for, rather than sit and watch a car pulling [on computer in class, not a class-sanctioned activity], and kind of doze off a bit. So it's definitely more helpful to do it when I wanted to do it and how I wanted to do it.
Brandon: Yeah, the online atmosphere is like, you work at your speed and sometimes your speed may be faster than other people's speeds. So you feel like you can accomplish more than just sitting in a classroom all the time...
Alexa: Yeah, my professor kept emphasizing that writing is different for every person, in the ENG 111 class, and now I’m at 112 and it's like "it's different for every person, but here are some cookie-cutter molds that you kind of have to fit into," and so I felt like the online format kind of allowed you to be more different, and allowed you to kind of work the way you wanted to and the way you could, rather than what they thought you should do.
Now, admittedly, some of the differences Brandon feels between an online and traditional classroom certainly could be influenced by differences in instructor pedagogies, but the online environment also appears to be a strong influence. What Brandon and Alexa point to is that instructional delivery on a topic that happens in a traditional classroom on Tuesday at 2 p.m. when you're aiming to write your paper that weekend is just not as helpful as being able to click and watch a video when needed or to be able to view (and review) class discussions as needed. One student explained that "unlike a normal lecture, I could replay a lecture if I felt I didn't understand it fully, and I could also reference specific points in the lecture more effectively than if I had not had constant access to it." In fact, students seemed to find the video lectures and online discussions more helpful to their learning than assigned readings. In their suggestions for improving or changing the course, one student said "less readings, more videos," and another student said "Lots of videos help because it is easier to understand than just text." (This is a point we return to in the Implications section.)
Figure 7.9 shows the percentage of student responses when asked how helpful both assigned readings and video lectures were at the end of their class (N=24). Although some students reported that the assigned readings were helpful, more students seemed to find the instructors'; video lectures helpful to their learning.
Figure 7.9. Percent of students reporting helpfulness of assigned readings and video lectures
In addition, students felt that using Google's suite of products, particularly Google Drive, enabled them to collaborate at times when they needed to and in more depth than if they were trying to find a time to meet in person. As Alexa explained:
For Google Docs we used ours as kind of like—we did a lot of group brainstorming, prewriting for inquiry 4, the multimedia one [where] we had to actually collaborate with group members. I had one person in India in my group. She was all the way across the world, and then I had someone from northern Ohio, so there's no possible way we could even get up [at the same time] if we wanted to. Yet we were able to brainstorm, draft, talk about it, and do everything we could have possibly needed to do, and I’ve actually met them on campus and it's pretty cool. 'Cause we're really good friends now.
What Alexa describes—collaborating with partners across the state and around the globe and in time zones where it was difficult to meet synchronously—worked so well for her and her group because of the design of the digital interfaces. She and her partners felt connected and felt they were "talking" together as they left comments for each other Google Docs. Of course this sort of interaction isn't necessarily different than what students in traditional classrooms do when working on a group project outside of class, but because their only point of connection with their peers was online, students seemed to place a lot of value on the interactive features of interfaces, such as comment features.