Hoey responds to an earlier posting with further comments about the need to examine the differences between human interaction face-to-face and via telecommunications. Can some of our industry-based readers of AAHESGIT respond to Hoey's observation that "...at a time when corporate America is pulling employees back into the workplace from home offices..." Is this a trend? Why or why not?
Are there good sources of information available about the unique dimensions of face-to-face communication?
As Hoey suggests, can stand-up comics and other theater folks tell us something about the difference between "live" and recorded performances?
Can those with experience in distance education describe the circumstances under which teaching/learning via telecommunications are most effective?
What are the most useful research questions we should be asking?)
Steve Gilbert
Gilbert makes a good point: we do need to identify those aspects of face-to-face interaction that make a difference-- not just to facilitate the development of technological surrogates; the better we understand just what it is about in-person exchanges that make the difference, the more able we will be as real-time educators to insure that our students are receiving the most that we can provide.
Educators might wonder why, at a time when corporate America is pulling employees back into the workplace from home offices, we are reversing that trend. Businesses discovered that the casual contact between employees, perhaps while getting water or coffee, often led to discussions that sparked creative insights. Yes, the employees were able to accomplish their defined work at home, but at home, even with the use of telephone and on-line communication, the same level of interactive problem-solving did not occur. While it might be argued that this reflects our lack of adaptation to the ways that we can "schmooze" electronically, that still does not address the problem that something is lost when we sever the direct human-to-human link.
Even with synchronous video contact, how much self- consciousness will we retain in those interactions? Most of us become highly sensitized when we are on camera, just as we are more aware of what we "say" when we have to write it. And we also remain unaware of just how great a role the various senses play in social interaction. Live video classes would not allow the instructor the same simultaneous ability to scan, as it were, a long shot of the class and instantly focus close-up on a particular student whose posture suggested confusion. Spontaneity necessarily leaks out.
Perhaps because I have learned many of my strategies as a classroom instructor in terms of making lecture/discussions accessible and "audience" friendly from watching stand-up comics like Robin Williams, I am especially sensitive to just how much my own students lose in receiving "virtual" lectures. Not just the patter is absent, but the probing if humorous questions as I go, prompting the students to contribute what they know to the discussion, pushing them to increase their own awareness of what they know. This can be difficult in a real-time class; some rooms are just tough to play. But it becomes almost impossible via electronic communication, at least for someone who is not a technological whiz. Perhaps it's possible to design a more interactive program to promote asynchronous interactive discussion; if so, I haven't the expertise to design or implement it. And to what extent would that program remain interactive in the sense that computerized solitaire, for instance, is interactive?
These are real questions that we face if we are committed to providing the best education to our students. We need to realize that something is lost when we eliminate face-to-face contact. Our mission as educators will be served when we are able to discover just what those elements of live interaction are that make this such a powerful factor. I look forward to seeing continued discussion in this area.
Allen Hoey
Bucks County Community College
Information below last updated: 4/27/97
TLTR Summer Institute -- July 11-16, 1997 Phoenix, Arizona
Steven W. Gilbert, Director, Technology Projects
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