©2006 richard watson todd student interaction through bulletin boards and discussion lists richard...

©2006 Richard Watson Todd

Student Interaction through Bulletin Boards and

Discussion Lists

Richard Watson Todd

King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi


The Situation

A third-semester English support course for undergraduates studying an international programme in IT at a Thai university.

A computer-mediated communication (CMC) project is set up jointly with classes from universities in Australia, China and Japan.

In total, 76 students from 5 classes participated.Initially, student communicated through bulletin

boards and then through e-mail discussion lists.


Some terminology• CMC: “communication that takes place betwee

n human beings via the instrumentality of comp uters” (Herring, 1 9 9 6 )

• Asynchr onous CMC i ncl udes bul l et i n boar ds - and e mai l di scussi on l i st s

• Bulletinboard: “amessageispostedinacentralplacetobe accessed and r ead by many peopl e” ( Warschauer, Turbee and Roberts, 1 9 9 6 )

• - Discussionlist: “oneemai l message can be sent si mul t aneousl y - tothousandsof e mai l addr esses” ( ibid.)


Characteristics of asynchronous CMC

• Wr i t t en• Text ual• - -Many t o many• - - More complex and denser than face to face co

mmunication• Less f or mal t han most wr i t i ng

2001 2001(Harrington and Levy, ; Warschauer, )


Differences in the nature of bulletin boards and discussion lists

• Links between messages• Feelings of permanence• Feelings of publicness


Advantages of asynchronous CMC

• Increased student motivation• Increased meaningfulness• Increased confidence and responsibility• Student control of content and process of

learning• Non-threatening means of communication• Critical thinking• Learning about other cultures• Better understanding of own culture


Previous research

• - Emailprojectwithpairedstudents: helpfulforwriting, l ess hel pf ul f or r eadi ng (Li aw, 1998)• E-E EEE E EEEEEE EEE EEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEE

differences in lexical complexity and grammati 2000cal accuracy (Li, )

• Case studies of asynchronous conferencing: EFE EEEEEEEE EEEEEE EEEEE EEEEE EE EEE E EEEEEEEEE

2000in ESL situations (Davis and Thiede, )

• Lack of research comparing types of CMC or inv estigating discourse


The project

• - EEEEEEE EEEEEEEE EEEEEEE EEE EEE EEEEE 2 001: (..) .: English, using English

• - 2002JanFeb : UsingYahoogroupsf or di scussi on l i st s. St ar t i ng t opi cs: socialpr obl ems i n your count r y, st r engt hs and we

aknesses of your uni ver si t y

• Not all students’ contributions investigated


The research goals

• Differences between bulletin boards and discussion lists:

• Length of contributions• Syntactic complexity• Cohesion and coherence links between

messages• Nature of interaction


Sample bulletin board messages

• [ Edit|Delete ]FROM: Richard Watson Todd (11/20/01 8:08 PM GMT -06:00)SUBJECT: How you learn in the classroom[Reply|Send a personal message ]

• What sorts of activities do you do in the English classroom? Which ones do you find most useful? Why?



• FROM: X Y (11/22/01 12:41 AM GMT -06:00) [Send a personal message]SUBJECT: why learn English?[ Edit|Delete ]- In my class, my teacher always gives knowledge not to be serious by adapting the future life to learn easily. He sometimes brings games to help teaching but it's not nonsense. His games are about thinking skills or creative thinking by assembling us in-group. I think it's very useful because we have to participate in order to share the opinions and solve

the problem together.



FROM: A B (11/22/01 4:23 AM GMT -06:00) [Send a personal message]SUBJECT: Never give up.[ Edit|Delete] In every English class I try to listen and speak English as much as I can.. Everyday my teacher will give us new activities and I enjoyed them (the activities) very much.. I have homeworks (never less than 2) every class. Luckily, I finished them before class always.


Sample discussion list messagesSubject: [APSocialProblems] The main social problem

Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 20:53:58 -0800 (PST)

From: A B <A [email protected]>

Reply-To: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

1. What do you think are the main social problems in your country?

- I think the main social problem in Thailand is drug.

2. Why do you think they are problems?

- Drug is the first of many problems such as a crime, a rape, a young prostitute, etc. ; People who are addicted to drug can kill anyone when he mad, some young girls maybe sell themselves to earn money for drug. These situation, we meet in a newspaper everyday.


Sample discussion list messages

3. How do you think they can be solved?

- I think we must teach the children to know how the drug is danger. The family is the most important. Parents must be close and look after their children carefully. They should teach and be a good model because the children will follow their parents. Seem the buildings are strong because their bases are firm.


Sample discussion list messagesHi friends,

Nice to meet you all.

The social problems in my country are the problems that are about the juvenile and I think the main problem is the drug problem that is hard to solve and it will lead to the other problems.

I think it is the problem because it makes the most people in trouble. The people who use the drug cannot control themselves. They haven't conscience. They will do another thing that may be the social problems and it will lead to another social problem.

The government tries to solve this problem but it's very hard. I think it will solve by their family. The parents should give love enough for them and should teach them about the disadvantage of the drug. The special thing, the parents should be the good consultant because they will tell you every problems and you will help them solve them so they won't use the drug and you will know their daily life. I think it will decrease the drug problem.

X Y


Length of contributions and syntactic complexity

• Bulletin boards• 32 messages• 1843 words• Words/message: 57.59• Phrases/message: 33.84• T-units/message: 4.84• Words/T-unit: 11.89• Words/phrase: 1.70• Phrases/T-unit: 6.99

• Discussion lists• 25 messages• 3891 words• Words/message: 155.64• Phrases/message: 85.60• T-units/message: 15.44• Words/T-unit: 10.08• Words/phrase: 1.81• Phrases/T-unit: 5.54


Length of contributions and syntactic complexity

• Using T-test (2-sample unequal variance 2-tailed):

• Significant differences in length (p<0.00001)

• No differences in syntactic complexity


Discourse and interaction

• Bulletin boards• No greetings, farewells,

signatures or inclusion of prompt

• Nearly all messages strictly answering the starter messages

• No replies to replies• One-to-many or many-to-

one communication

• Discussion lists• Frequent greetings,

signatures and inclusions of prompt

• Most messages strictly answering the starter messages

• Limited replies to replies• One-to-many, many-to-

one and many-to-many communication


Sample bulletin board• What do you do to improve your English outside the

classroom? Why do you think these things are helpful?

• Outside the classroom I have many ways to improve my English. The first one I talk English to my sister. The second one I listen to the music I like because it helps me know new slang words and idioms without being serious. The last one I watch the sound track movies and try not to look the subtitle. I think these things can help me to improve my English because I always do them and I got better grade.


Sample discussion list• Hi! I am X.

• What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses?

• I am studying at King Mongkut's University. The weakness is about equipment and laboratory are not enough to students such as in my faculty have only one computer laboratory that has about twenty-five computers .The strength is about engineering such as a robot because my university is been represent go to Japan to competition in recently.

• What makes you proudest of your university?

• I proud of studying at Information Technology faculty that is same name of university . My full name university is the King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi.


Problem 1: practicality

• Semester dates between countries vary• Student contributions drop off through

the project• Serious consideration needs to be given

to timing


Problem 2: interaction

• Starter questions are needed• Model replies from teachers do not

stimulate students to reply to replies• Students can be required to reply to

replies and/or start own topics• Set up projects so that students have to

get information from each other (e.g. cultural exchanges)


Findings

• Problems regarding interaction and practicality

• Students approach the two types of CMC differently

• Differences in length and interaction may make discussion lists preferable

©2006 richard watson todd student interaction through bulletin boards and discussion lists richard...

Documents

discourse slide

culture slide

email discussion lists

nature of bulletin boards

discussion lists links

email writing

email message

terminology cmc