Now, you could do the same thing by giving each student a blog, and that has pros and cons. On the pro side, it liberates each student to dig in deeper and range a little more broadly. On the con side, it creates less immediate opportunity for students to comment on each other’s posts and have a real discussion (though I suspect that blogging proponents would argue that students may be more apt to regularly read, think about, and respond to each other’s blog posts when they are more strongly identified with the voices of the individuals, as blogs do better than discussion boards). My feeling is that a properly designed discussion board is more conducive to long and deep exchanges when used right, but blogs have different strengths. A good class should probably have both.

At any rate, the affordances of the blog versus the discussion board are only part of the problem that leads to this sort of “call and response” pattern of online discussion. The larger problem is time. Online conversation is more time-consuming than face-to-face. Teachers therefore are often forced to choose between cultivating a few deep and long-running conversations over the course of the class and a higher number of shorter, shallower conversations.

I’m concerned, though, when I look at Cole’s class blog, that it seems to be just so much “essay posting.” Where’s the back-and-forth of a discussion? Or is discussion not the goal here.

I’m spending a lot of time scratching my head about this whole blog v. discussion board thing. I know there are complimentary uses here, and I know that they might match up to different kinds of goals…

Anyway, I blogged about it after reading your entry, if anyone’s interested.

-Jim