No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.

Ansel Adams

It's Saturday. I posted in my blog about my high school art classes and our adventures with iPads and visible thinking, I posted numerous posts in our discussions board, and now I am posting on this blog.
I think two thoughts:
A. There must be a way to consolidate all these discussions.
B. Perhaps this is the way of communication. We will have multiple decisions using multiple online forums and formats. One issue is though, are we repeating ourselves over and over, or are the audiences different so its a way to reach and have our voice be heard over a larger area?

All these discussions posts being made by me personally, as well as the discussion board work my students are doing in their Google+ communities really has me thinking.
Me & Thinking. Not a good combo. Usually leads to more work for me. 
But whatever.
I REALLY want to know why my students behave and respond and react the way they do in these discussion boards.

This is what I thought would happen:

• Me or a student would post a question.
• Students would respond thoughtfully to the question.
• Other students would respond to the responses. 
• These online discussions would lead to further investigations into the subjects and prompt conversations outside of the discussion forum.
• They would use the community outside of school on their smart phones, tablets, etc.
• Students would +1 interesting comments leading to large numbers of +'s on popular posts.

This is what is happening:

• I post a question and one or two students answer short answer, albeit thoughtful ones, and other than that I am basically ignored.
• I make the students post questions.
• Their questions get better after they see questions posted by other students.
• They respond, but half the time not to the question specifically.
• They tell us a lot what they like.
• They do take time to think about what they are posting, but it still suffers disconnect.
• They make fun of me for my enthusiasm!
• They begrudgingly +1 post, they will +1 photos of themselves and classmates however. 
• They do not read comments above their own.
• They do not read the whole forum, concentrating instead on what catches their eye.

Exceptions to the rule: the Resharer: finds all the funny trending stuff and reshares.
                               the Questioner: does ask insightful questions, gets more responses than I do
                               the Commenter: comments on everything, short to the point
                               the Friday nighter: comments and posts on Friday or Saturday nights, mostly                                      either funny stuff or thoughtful commentary.

We read classmates' bibliographies this week and some of my classmates found some interesting articles that I think address the phenomena I am observing.

Clarke, S. (2011). Peer Interaction and Engagement Through Online Discussion Forums: A Cautionary Tale. Liverpool Law Review, 32(2), 149-163. Retrieved September 6, 2013 from http://ezproxy.memphis.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ofm&AN=65243283&site=ehost-live

Sarah Schrire, Knowledge building in asynchronous discussion groups: Going beyond quantitative analysis, Computers & Education, Volume 46, Issue 1, January 2006, Pages 49-70, ISSN 0360-1315. Retrieved on October 16, 2013 from http://ezproxy.memphis.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=psyh&AN=2007-02725-004&site=ehost-live

Bai, H. (2009). Facilitating Students' Critical Thinking in Online Discussion: An Instructor' Experience. Journal Of Interactive Online Learning, 8(2), 156-164. Retrieved on September 16, 2013 from http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/pdf/8.2.4.pdf

Chen, S & Caropreso, E. (2004).  Influence of Personality on Online Discussion.
Journal of Interactive Online Learning.  Retrieved on September 16, 2013 from: http://www.openu.ac.il/Personal_sites/download/Avner-Caspi/Caspi_et_al_2006.pdf

Smith, C. & Winking-Diaz, A.  (2004).  Increasing Students Interactivity in an Online Course.  Journal of Interactive Online Learning.  Retrieved on September 16, 2013 from: http://www.ncolr.org/issues/jiol/v2/n3/increasing-students-interactivity-in-an-online-course#.UlKikCSoWyQ