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E–Learning and Digital Media
Volume 8 Number 1 2011
www.wwwords.co.uk/ELEA
19 http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/elea.2011.8.1.19
A Discussion by Any Other Name: disentangling
words and practice in online conferencing
JUDITH GUEVARRA ENRIQUEZ
Department of Learning Technologies,
Centre for Study of Interdisciplinarity,
University of North Texas, Denton, USA
ABSTRACT It is possible that the pedagogical benefits of a discussion board or any asynchronous
communicative tool may not be realised as inscribed in terms like ‘collaborative learning environment’
or ‘discussion board’ due to two things: first, as instructors, we focus on what the technology can do
and should do and ignore what is done when the technology is used in practice; and second, as
researchers, we focus on coding messages into categories and mapping online activities into models
that causes us, again, instead of seeing what is done, to try to fit our practices in situ into codes. As both
instructors and researchers, we try to adhere to a constructivist view of teaching and learning. This
article is about what is happening – the practice of blended/online learning and communication
environment and tool (i.e. discussion board) as the technology-in-situ. It disentangles the word
‘collaborative’ from ‘technology’ and, in particular, the word ‘discussion’ from ‘board’. Our very
notions of discussion or collaboration and our understanding of the so-called collaborative learning
environments define the ways in which we plan for an online activity. The author argues that
constructivism has become a byword influencing pedagogy, its methodologies including designing so-
called learning environments in ways that hide what is really happening when we are online. The case
of the discussion board is described to illustrate that the board online can be other things too.
Teaching strategies use discussions to stimulate and engage students in classroom activities. In the
current literature, we call this the promotion or practice of collaborative learning, framed and
advocated through our theorising that relates to different versions of constructivism/socio-
constructivism and notions of ‘communities of practice’. In the current practices of teaching and
learning under the notion of blended/online learning, our classroom discussions have ‘moved’ and
have been extended online. Teachers and students have been introduced to discussion boards and
‘collaborative learning environments’. Teachers have been told and convinced (perhaps not fully)
that the asynchronous nature of a communicative tool like a discussion board (DB) is going to
support collaboration among their students online. And yet, based on teachers’ experiences and
researchers’ findings, online discussions ‘fail’ (e.g. Gunawardena, 1995; Hallett & Cummings, 1997;
Heath, 1998). Why? The reasons we too often read or hear about have to do with the students’ lack
of skills and experience; the tutor’s inability to moderate online and the lack of verbal and social
cues in computer-mediated communication (e.g. Gunawardena, 1995; Muirhead, 2000); and the use
of tasks that are ill-suited for collaboration (Kirschner, 2005). This article does not disagree with the
reasons mentioned here. However, the study that provides empirical evidence for this article takes
a different route of investigation: first, it attends to the assumed and taken-for-granted ‘talk’
inscribed into the technology as collaborative, particularly in terms of DB as a board for discussion;
and second, it turns our attention away from models of collaborative learning that take our eyes
away from what is happening online. It proceeds to do so by divorcing (only partially) our theories
and methods from a constructivist approach. Then, a case of the discussion board is briefly brought
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into focus in the practice of blended/online learning by teacher education students and their tutor
and a description of what became of the board online as it was written, read and shared is provided.
The nature of discussions online is investigated by re-visiting what discussion and
collaboration mean in teaching and learning; by divorcing technology from ‘collaborative’ and
board from ‘discussion’; and by exploring how a DB had been used in situ by teacher education
students and their tutor. This ‘breaking apart’ of the medium from its prescribed use intends to
magnify the practices within and surrounding the content of online ‘posts’ as part of the material
conditions of teacher education students who were mostly based off-campus in school placements
throughout their postgraduate study to become history teachers. Before it attends to what
happened on DB online, the ‘divorce’ process begins with a suggestion that perhaps a ‘breaking
apart’ from constructivism may be needed too, to stretch our imaginings and to accommodate the
ordinary everyday experience, the ‘ordering on the spot’ that matters when we talk about ‘being
constructivist’. The direction of the discussion will be prompted by the headings that follow in the
rest of the article.
Constructivist Versions of Teaching and Learning
A ‘learning as acquisition’ (Sfard, 1998) metaphor of learning is further maintained through the
institutional habits in higher education (HE) practice that are still dominated by the curriculum, the
lecture, and ‘writing’ literacy, not to mention by the ways knowledge is validated through our
existing assessment methods. Within this educational climate, the persistent organisation of a
university and its virtual environments, the works of Vygotsky and his interpreters have been
mobilised to redefine learning as a mediated process through computer-based media to shift away
from the learning-as-acquisition model of prescribed knowledge and skills. Consequently,
constructivist learning theories have become widely accepted as a key justification in the
application of technology to teaching and learning. This interest is largely related to the
‘interactivity’ provided by the networked environment, not found in the face-to-face mode of
communication (Driscoll, 1994; Kanuka & Anderson, 1998). The use of technology in education,
particularly of the Internet and the interactive medium of computer-mediated communication
(CMC), provided an avenue to talk about collaborative learning (i.e. shared cognition) and
‘community of practice’ in a learning context (Brown et al, 1989; Lave & Wenger, 1991). These
have become ‘catchwords’ in the field, defining policies, research themes and teaching/learning
objectives. Furthermore, it has been widely accepted that the use of the CMC medium or tools
supports knowledge construction, while simultaneously creating an archive of the knowledge co-
constructed in online transcripts (Kanuka & Anderson, 1998).
It has become common in technology-related studies in teaching and learning that reference
to Vygotsky is put forward almost to signal to the reader the social and situated theoretical
perspective of a theme, a topic, a presentation, an article or a book. It is almost one of the bywords
that is used in educational ‘talk’. As if the instant that his name is evoked or mentioned, (surely)
everybody knows what everybody means. However, we know that this is not entirely true.
Instead, it carries with it issues of translation and interpretation (see, for detailed discussion,
Smagorinsky, 1995), which are largely ignored in research studies. Most non-Russians rely on
translated versions of Vygotsky’s works. People have appropriated and interpreted the versions of
his translated works in various ways. For example, according to Smagorinsky (1995), Moll (1990)
sees Vygotsky’s work as socio-historical psychology, whereas, Wertsch (1994) argues for a socio-
cultural perspective. Furthermore, Cazden (1996) argued that most readings of Vygotsky are
‘selective’ and reveal more about the appropriators than about Vygotsky’s psychological theories.
An example of this would be Michael Glassman’s (2001) article in the Educational Researcher, which
Gredler & Shields (2004) criticised as a misleading portrayal of Vygotsky’s work. They claim that
Glassman (2001) misconstrued the major concepts and topics addressed by Vygotsky’s theory of
cognitive development in equating Vygotsky’s thinking with that of John Dewey. Despite the
appearance of ‘reliable’ English translations of Vygotsky’s published writings and a detailed study of
his life (see e.g. Van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991), the mistranslations and misconceptions continue
(Gredler & Shields, 2004).
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In daring to briefly describe the mistranslations and misunderstandings of Vygotsky, I choose
not to go any deeper. Aside from the fact that there is rich literature out there from scholars who
have studied Vygotsky’s works more closely (and who could possibly read Russian) and who have
covered this topic or these topics in great detail and clarity, it is not my intent to fix and situate this
article in any particular one (not intentionally anyway). Instead, I direct the reader to the articles of
Davis & Sumara (2002), Fox (2001) and Liu & Matthews (2005) (and even to visit and search
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/) for further readings.
At the core, whichever version, translation or interpretation of Vygotsky we use, or
whichever kind of constructivism we find our theorising to be oriented to in trying to make sense
of teaching and learning practices, it is a framing that is in sharp contrast between ‘learning as
acquisition’ and a view of ‘learning as participation’. In short, the criticism of traditional education
and the use of new technologies for teaching and learning together made constructivism an
established perspective, along with accepted ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ in terms of pedagogy and
research methodology. The unifying element or key variable amid the many versions of
constructivism is interaction – as the active process of construction. Interaction is further theorised
in research from various disciplines involving notions of participation, social context and tool
mediation (Crook, 2001) and, most recently, in terms of collaboration and community (as discussed
in the next section), facilitated and further reified and captured in conference transcripts (De Wever
et al, 2006).
Collaboration and Community as Measures of Constructivism
HE finds itself in a field where ‘learning community’ and ‘collaborative learning’ remain the
dominant form of discourse/rhetoric that has been inscribed and reified into technologies since
constructivism has become the measure of effective teaching practices and e-learning has been
institutionalised. An instance of sustained interest and focus on collaborative learning can be traced
to Koschmann’s (1996) edited book, CSCL: Theory and Practice of an Emerging Paradigm. Its emphasis
was on technology designed to support collaborative activities, a paradigm shift from applications,
which catered for individual learning (at that time, this would refer to, for example, Seymour
Papert’s LOGO, microworlds). CSCL has emerged as a field that is in some ways an ‘umbrella’
term (Bannon, 1995), maybe even as ‘catch acronym’ to bring together a variety of researchers with
their various backgrounds. It allows for multiple perspectives to extend beyond disciplinary
domains. In short, it is not a singular concept, requiring more than one answer if one asks what it
is, as it is defined by multiple meanings and relations of concepts (Bannon, 1995). However, there is
one thread that somehow holds it together in research - the association of CMC with notions of
collaboration and community (e.g. Mason & Kaye, 1989; Harasim et al, 1995; O’Malley, 1995).
The interactive nature of a CMC tool is often mistaken as or taken to mean participation. Its
interactivity is made synonymous with collaboration and is also presumed to denote learning or
knowledge construction (Henri, 1995). To illustrate this, the word ‘interaction’ is almost always
prefixed with the word ‘collaborative’ (e.g. Martínez et al, 2001). Consequently, in research studies,
the number of posted messages has become the measure of the level of participation, and the
‘collective’ content of these messages is assumed to be the knowledge constructed by those who
‘participated’. In short, collaboration in itself is widely seen as a relatively unproblematic outcome
of use of CMC (Jones, 1998), despite the fact that it has been acknowledged that merely placing
students in groups in the classroom or in an online environment is not a guarantee that
collaboration will take place (Henri, 1995; Johnson & Johnson, 1999; Jones, 2000).
Contrary to this belief, or anticipation that has persisted about CMC studies and the related
fields of e-learning, collaboration is not a product of the interactive design of the technology (Jones,
1998). However, CSCL researchers still insist on designing systems that would support
collaborative activities. For example, Lipponen & Lallimo (2004) made a distinction between
collaboratively usable applications and collaborative technology, which in the view of this article
still inscribes collaboration into the technology, as clearly evoked in the following:
By collaborative technology, we denote a technology that is especially designed and tested (i.e., is
grounded on careful theoretical and empirical analyses) to support and establish collaboration in
education. (p. 436)
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Could we design collaboration into technology? According to Lipponen & Lallimo (2004), yes. I
qualify the ‘yes’ in the sense that collaboration is common ground in which designers and
developers of the technology can work with one another. They offered four criteria for what may
be called a collaborative technology:
• its design is grounded on careful theoretical and empirical analyses;
• it relies on the idea of groupware;
• it supports users’ activities by providing advanced procedural facilitation or socio-cognitive
scaffolding;
• it offers a variety of representational and community building tools.
In short, a collaborative technology has to be ‘Vygotskian’ or constructivist in the broadest sense of
the word (Lipponen & Lallimo, 2004). One might ask: which version? An example is Knowledge
Forum (KF), formerly known or called CSILE (Computer Supported Intentional Learning
Environment), an educational groupware developed and built on a local area network in 1986 by
Scardamalia & Bereiter. It is a web-based environment for electronic discussions and for organising
the notes written by students. Students in KF create their own knowledge databases for their own
‘knowledge-building community’ (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1996; Scardamalia, 2004).
Two of the most recent collaborative technologies identified by Lipponen & Lallimo (2004)
are CaMILE (Collaborative and Multimedia Interactive Learning Environment, developed by Mark
Guzdial (see Guzdial & Turns, 2000), and FLE3 (Future Learning Environment,
http://fle3.uiah.fi/; see Muukkonen et al, 1999), developed by UIAH Media Lab in cooperation
with the University of Helsinki.
Given the above criteria, a commercial learning system such as Blackboard may not be
considered a collaborative technology. However, it is still a technology that could be used for
collaboration (i.e. a ‘collaborative application’). I’m not arguing against the design and
development of collaborative technologies or technologies for collaboration. However, it must be
remembered that the collaborative design does not guarantee a collaborative use of the
technology. A persistent, common misconception derived from the technological determinist view
that the technology is immutable at the stage of implementation and use becomes the source of
tension when the technology inter-acts (Suchman, 1987). There are other factors that are ‘outside’
the virtual environment that produce collaborative practices (Bannon, 1995; Baym, 1995; Olson &
Olson, 2000). Perhaps it is true that KF, CaMILE or FLE3 are more ‘receptive’ or ‘attuned’ to the
process of collaboration. However, collaboration remains a process that could not easily be pinned
down with the design of a technology. Rather, it emerges in acting with the technology. And
sometimes, perhaps most of the time, it is not collaboration, and hardly a community that is
brought about, but other forms of communicative acts.
Constructivism in Methods and Approaches
There appears to be an unquestioned link between the socio-constructivist view of learning and the
methods and approaches of educational technology research. This further supports and propagates
what has already been discussed - that the technology is inherently constructivist or collaborative in
its design or that it may be designed to be collaborative. The most common theoretical perspective
is knowledge construction, usually espoused with notions of collaborative learning and learning
community (e.g. Veerman & Veldhuis-Diermanse, 2001; Järvela & Hakkinen, 2002; Lockhorst et al,
2003; Pena-Shaff & Nicholls, 2004; Weinberger & Fisher, 2006), and the common variable is
participation or interaction (e.g. Henri, 1992; Howell-Richardson & Mellar, 1996; Bullen, 1998;
McDonald, 1998; Hillman, 1999; Rourke et al, 1999; Hara et al, 2000; Murphy, 2004). It has been
proposed that social interaction has to be designed, managed and/or structured (Liaw & Huang,
2000; Kreijns et al, 2002; 2003; Vonderwell, 2002).
The automatic creation of machine-readable transcripts of interactions makes the use of CMC
in performing learning tasks quite unique (Harasim et al, 1995). It also provides researchers with a
‘ready-made’ source of data. It is a widely shared view that the available transcripts are the key to
understanding ‘online learning’. Various models and tools have been developed to facilitate
transcript analysis. For example, there is Henri’s (1992) model. Perhaps, it is the most popular one.
It has been used in other studies - for example, Hara et al. (2000) and McKenzie & Murphy (2000).
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Henri has developed the most sophisticated cognitive analysis model for online interaction: explicit
interaction through direct answer or comment; implicit interaction through indirect answer or
comment and independent statement. However, it has also been criticised, particularly by
Gunawardena et al (1997), who happened to have developed what is considered the next popular
model of transcript analysis. They said Henri’s model is limited in focusing on a teacher-centered
instructional paradigm that is inappropriate in a constructivist environment based on a learner-
centered construction of knowledge. They theorised that the active construction of knowledge is a
movement through five phases in an interaction analysis model: sharing/comparing information;
discovery and exploration of dissonance or inconsistency among participants; negotiation of
meaning/co-construction of knowledge; testing and modification of proposed synthesis or co-
construction; and agreement statement(s)/application of newly constructed meaning. Lastly, there
is the community of enquiry model developed by Garrison et al (2000). This is a framework that
classifies and identifies ‘presence’ online in three ways: the cognitive, the social and the teaching
presence of both teachers and learners in analysing transcripts. Models and frameworks have been
useful as ‘ordering mechanisms’ for representing the nature or characteristics of knowledge
construction - for example, in terms of cognition for Henri (1992) and of presence for Garrison et al
(2000).
Research findings from content analysis of transcripts therefore offer multiple descriptions
regarding the cognitive and interpersonal characteristics of the technology. Inevitably, one of the
major issues in CMC research is determining the purpose of transcript analysis (Kinsel &
Woodward, 2002). Kinsel & Woodward (2002) have provided a list of what CMC may provide or
the purpose/s that it may serve for teaching and learning, such as to increase student control and to
build a community. In short, the purpose of analysing transcripts is to provide a product of proof of
what we have come to believe to be its educational value in terms of learning in the first place.
However, the ‘context’ (that is, the technology itself, the physical setting and the conditions in
which the transcripts are produced) of the transcripts is usually omitted in CMC research (Mason &
Romiszowski, 1996) or, more specifically, in doing content analysis. Furthermore, while content
analysis may provide statistics regarding the number of messages, who contributes and how often,
and the message coding of content, these have proved to be insufficient in indicating the impact of
CMC usage in terms of meeting, discussion and collaboration.
What is Collaborative Discussion?
Both our pedagogy and our research seem to have been trapped in a ‘constructivist marriage’ that
is either too enthralled with the technical that the social is forgotten or too preoccupied with the
social that we ignore the fact that the technical is not neutral. To continue with this ‘divorce’, we
come to terms with discussion once again. How do we define discussion? What distinguishes it
from other forms of talk? It suffices to say that discussion is a dialogue between two or more people
about a particular topic or shared inquiry. In teaching in the classroom, discussion is an oral
exploration of a topic, object, concept or experience. However, online it becomes (or can be) a
written exchange. Teachers facilitate discussions to stimulate the exchange of ideas, to promote
understanding and reflection and to provide opportunities for students to clarify ideas and doubts
and to ask questions. Communicative tools are said to enhance the purposes of discussion.
Generally, we use discussions to implement teaching strategies like problem-solving, researching
and collaborative learning.
Now, what is a collaborative discussion? In short, what is collaboration? According to
Roschelle & Teasley (1995, p. 970), collaboration requires ‘coordinated, synchronous activity, that
is the result of a continued attempt to construct and maintain a shared conception of a problem’. If
we are to accept this definition of collaboration as a synchronous activity, then are we to say that
asynchronous discussions online cannot be ‘collaborative’? Of course not, because some of us have
empirical evidence to demonstrate that online collaboration does take place in asynchronous
activities or that computer-based media are to some extent collaborative (Enyedy & Hoadley,
2006). Besides, there are scholars who have claimed that ‘collaborative technologies’ could be
designed (e.g. Kirschner et al, 2005; Lipponen & Lallimo, 2004). However, this article argues that
the synchronicity or collaborative nature of an online activity depends not on the design of the
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technology, but on how it is used in practice (for a detailed discussion of the different
understandings of collaboration, see Lipponen et al, 2004). And so, collaboration means the sharing
of goals, experiences, resources or artifacts, that is acknowledged first and foremost both in the
reading and the writing of posts, and second, in terms of receiving and sending them. This is to say
that the emphasis of collaboration here is not the posting of messages, but the sharing among
students, not excluding those who choose to read and not write. This is mentioned because
literature related to online discussions or collaboration has translated, at the level of analysis, a
response to a post as a ‘collaborative tie’ if not a community (e.g. Lipponen et al, 2003). In short,
we have ‘engraved’ discussion and collaboration in online boards in our rhetoric and categories for
analysis; our interpretations could not disentangle the ‘board’ from ‘discussion’ or the ‘technology’
from ‘collaborative’.
The Participants Who Got Involved With DB
On 22 March 2005, I met with Dr Roberts (not her real name), who was a new lecturer at the
School of Education at that time. She is a lecturer in the PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in
Education) program for secondary school teaching of history (PGCE-H). It was for 36 weeks from
September 2004 to June 2005. It is substantially school-based, wherein 24 out of the 36 weeks were
spent in school placements. There were 21 teacher education students in the class.
An Instance of an Online Board
The discussion board in the study reported here is one of the communication facilities in
Blackboard. It is described within the web pages of the university where the study was conducted
as:
a component of a course site. Messages on a discussion board are displayed and organised in a
forum-thread structure. Instructors can create forums for various purposes, such as to conduct
discussion on a specific topic, to provide an area for student peer-support, to respond [to] queries
on course work, assignment and projects etc. Within a forum, students can create threads where
messages are posted and [responded to]. Instructors can also edit, delete, archive messages in
discussion forums and control who is allow[ed] to participate.
This rather long quote outlines and summarises the common conception of how DB may be used
in the practice of teaching as prompted by its features or functions - that is, what one could do with
it. However, the capabilities of DB do not necessarily or inherently support collaboration. For
example, the one-to-one threading structure of the messages, particularly in Blackboard, is limited
in representing a group discussion where one addresses more than one individual. A posting to
many becomes ‘tied’ to just one as established by a thread with a click on the ‘Reply’ button. Only
the reader and the writer could extend the one-to-one threading structure into one-to-many
exchanges by adapting strategies where interlocutors would used greetings such as ‘Hi all’ or by
explicitly writing the names to whom a posting is intended (Enriquez, 2008).
Practices on the ‘Board’
In this section, messages are evoked to engage with and explicate to the readers and/or participants
what happened in the forums in DB using Blackboard when teacher education students used it in
multiple ways. Aside from being a task board wherein individual students posted their responses to
a given task, it became a resource board, a help board, an award board, a Q&A (question-and-answer)
board, etc. Four kinds of boards are evoked with the following online posts. The posts were from 4
out of 21 teacher education students and their tutor in the academic year 2004-2005.
As a Resource Board
On 17 October 2004, H1 posted the following:
Subject: To begin with
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Today’s Sunday Telegraph (17th October, 2004), contains a number of articles which may be of
interest.
Firstly, p2 contains a short article on the possibility of the much talked about diploma style
qualification to replace GCSE and A-Levels...
P3 carried an article in which Dr David Starkey once again laments history in schools. On this
occasion he calls for a revival in English patriotism (the cynics amongst you will note this
coincides with his latest TV series, Monarchy, which begins on C4 tomorrow night).
‘Dr Starkey said [notes the article] that public ignorance about the country’s past was increasing
because of the way in which English history is taught. Modern teaching, he said, is obsessed with
the mechanics of history rather than with the story itself.’ A topic I believe we have already visited on
this board ... but perhaps someone would care to comment further?
Finally Francis Gilbert, English Dept. Head, commented on p27 about the much publicised issue
of cheating in coursework. (Thanks to the alleged antics of one Eton pupil). An article which
serves to highlight questions of pupil-teacher trust, assessment methods and the worth of GCSE
etc. ... Do read it if you get the chance. (Student H1, emphasis added)
H1 came onto the board with ‘pages’ from the Sunday Telegraph and his/her views. He/she linked
the articles he/she had read with what was being discussed on the board to share with his/her
peers.
As a Help Board
On 5 November 2004, H12 posted the following:
Subject: I have a problem! Help me!
Hello everyone! Hope your [sic] all doing well!
I have an issue I don’t know how to handle and was wondering if you could tell me what you
would do (apart from scream)!
He/she asked for help on how to attend to a pupil who kept interrupting the lesson with far-
reaching questions on the subject at hand. H12 brought to the board his/her experience while in
school.
As an Award Board
On 12 November 2004, the tutor posted the following:
Subject: TWO TEACHERS OF THE WEEK
Although this award is meant for the best DBoard posting itself there are two awards this week.
[H12] for his sheer guts in coping with so much to ensure as much as possible that learning went
on for most despite many difficulties – well done [H12]. Secondly – for thoroughly wonderful
support of others and for excellent ideas for ICT/emmlac resources [H14]. Well Done!
(Emphasis added)
The posting was not about completing a task, but about a job well done, particularly for H12, who
had ‘cried’ for help in the previous posting.
As a Q&A Board
On 10 November 2004, a question was posted from H10:
Subject: how do i make a obiturary [sic] on Julius Caesar interesting?
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Any ideas, I have to get them to produce as an assessment piece ‘An Obituary on Julius Caesar’
I’m thinking of doing some kind of role play of JC’S death? but I’m really fishing for ideas, and if
anyone knows any useful websites please let me know too, I haven’t done the Romans since I
was in Year 7, got to do my homework!
The next day a response was posted by the tutor:
Subject: Re: how do i make a obituary on Julius Caesar interesting?
Start with what is an obituary. Maybe ask pupils what they or their heroes would like to be
remembered for - perhaps check with the class teacher first in case sensitivity is needed with
particular pupils. Discuss how whether you like or dislike a person might influence your obituary
– and whether it should. Is the purpose of an Obit to ‘honour’ the dead to mark their
achievements …
The board was defined by the kind of interactions and message content it allowed the students and
their tutor to have online. It ‘contained’ many things of various kinds – resources, questions,
answers, awards, pupils, lessons, news articles, experiences, emotions, support, etc. The forums in
the postgraduate course of the students (now teachers) in the above postings did not have deep
thread structure for their postings. Discussions did not really thrive. Does this mean collaborative
learning did not happen? No. The success of DB has more to do with the ‘board’ – the
communicative tool - than with ‘discussion’. This is an important point to note - why we have to
divorce the two to allow us to think of the communicative medium and the online task not
separately, but relationally. Furthermore, the board that encourages reflection ‘impedes’ discussions
in some ways. The board does not allow immediacy and interactivity that the students expect or
are familiar with in having discussions. The permanence and thread structure of messages make the
sequencing of the messages difficult to follow. Ironically, the more messages that may indicate a
thriving discussion in a thread, the more difficult this ultimately makes it to follow the sequencing
or turn-taking across threads. Inevitably, online discussions fail. The capabilities of DB do not
guarantee discussion. We have to consider how the threading of messages and the long turn-taking
delays may affect online cues (see Enriquez, 2008, 2009).
Separating board and discussion here gives us the freedom to think of DB not primarily and
inherently as a board for discussions and of discussions. For one, we know that in practice, the
‘board’ is organised into ‘folders’ to upload class materials, assignments, etc. for students.
Hopefully, this will shift our focus to the multiple ways the ‘board’ could support our teaching
strategies and student learning, particularly in terms of peer support for teacher education students.
Concluding Remarks
The ‘collaborative’ inscription of technology offers a limited view of artifacts and socio-technical
emergence. What seems to us as a noble epistemological or pedagogical perspective/position for
designing discussion into boards may well be generated by our cultural (constructivist) fixations.
We almost have a ‘collaborative bias’ for the technology to the point where we underrate the other
possibilities of its ‘utility’. This is not to say that technologies or online boards are infinitely
malleable, as they are never neutral in the context of use (Bromley, 1997). However, the supposed
‘discussion’ or ‘collaborative’ functions of artifacts do not provide a clear description of learning or
learners’ needs, and what is more, one cannot clearly infer from them the challenges teacher and
learners alike encounter and the tasks they choose to perform as they interact or communicate
online. In this article, we have considered divorcing ‘technology’ from ‘collaborative’ and ‘board’
from ‘discussion’ and ventured to ‘see’ what was happening through the board in situ. Instead of
looking for discussions, the focus was what was actually done when students engaged with a given
task online. When the focus shifts from what the ‘board’ is prescribed to do to what it was able to do
when put into practice as described by its participants, it became ‘more’ – a place for resource
sharing, help and support, question and answer and reflection. Therefore, in concluding this
‘divorce’, it is important to stress that the adoption or adaptation of artifacts does not necessarily
imply the transfer of the system logic that brought the technology into production. After all, any
innovation is not pre-ordained or pre-determined by the technology use that always emerges to be
more than it ought to be. Let it be ‘free’.
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27
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JUDITH GUEVARRA ENRIQUEZ is Assistant Professor in the Department of Learning
Technologies at the University of North Texas. Her research in technology-mediated learning is
strongly influenced by various intellectual traditions, including science and technology studies,
cultural psychology, sociology, linguistics, media/communication studies, and
information/organisation science. Her current interest focuses on methodologies and technique:
how do we proceed in exploring and investigating the increasingly ‘mobile’ and mediated
context/s of research? Correspondence: Judith Guevarra Enriquez, Department of Learning
Technologies, University of North Texas Discovery Park, 3940 North Elm, Denton, TX 76207, USA
(judith.enriquez@unt.edu).
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