Málfríður - 15.03.2007, Blaðsíða 30

0 MÁLFRÍÐUR
is therefore modeled on the idea of a seminar – a
room that one goes to at a particular time to meet
a particular group for a discussion of a particular
topic. This is a useful collaborative tool in itself but
it limits the range of interaction possible and in par­
ticular it restricts student independence in chosing
the time and purpose of interaction.
Spontaneous interaction is possible via the
Messenger tool, which lists users who are online
on the main course page. Clicking the message
icon next to an online user´s name pops up a new
window in which text can be entered and sent to the
other user. If they are still online, a window with
the message will pop up; if they have since logged
off, the message will be e­mailed to them (and in
fact other options such as SMS are to be available).
There are two major problems and one minor prob­
lem with this tool. First, the list of online users is
only supplied on the main course page – this means
that if a student wishes to discuss, for example, the
content of a wiki with a fellow user, then they have
to go to the main course page to check if anyone is
online. Second, the Messenger tool allows only two
users to participate in synchronous chat, so group
conversations are excluded. The minor problem
relates to the practicalities of using the Messenger
window. The Messenger tool really is conceived of
as a messenger service rather than a live chat tool in
the style of Yahoo/AOL/MSN Messenger. In nor­
mal text chatting, one enters text, hits enter and the
text is sent – proficient users can fire text back and
forth fairly quickly. The Messenger tool is designed
to allow one to enter a whole note and then send it
– hitting enter simply marks a new paragraph, as in
most e­mail and word processing programmes; to
send a message, one hits a send button. Though a
minor point, this reinforces the sense that this tool is
not designed for dynamic synchronous chat.
3.3.2.1.2 The Covcell Solution
The Covcell Project is developing a text chat tool
which includes some of the attractive features of the
above tools and provides a much more pervasive
and fine­grained sense of student presence in the
learning environment. Like the Messenger tool,
User Presence and Chat (UPC) provides a list of
online users with a link next to their name which
initiates a text chat. UPC also provides a menu for
initiating a group chat with several users on the
online list. The chat window operates in the style of
standard synchronous chat tools (cf. Yahoo/AOL/
MSN Messenger) with the enter button sending text
to the chat window. Crucially, a link to open the
online presence menu will be provided on all course
resource pages, so that if a student who is viewing
a wiki wants to check if any of their fellow students
is online, they simply click on the online presence
link and can initiate a chat directly. Further, the list
provides location­sensitive lists – so the online pre­
sence menu will provide information on who else
is viewing the resource that one is oneself viewing.
The aim here is to simulate the context for spont­
aneous and impromptu meetings on a physical cam­
pus, where users may stumble into each other at the
library or in the hall after class or outside the tutor´s
room. The system gives users the opportunity to
see who else is doing what they are currently doing
and interact with them. This is consistent with the
Moodle aspiration for spontaneity and flexibility in
the learning process (the meandering and tinkering
mentioned earlier in the definition of “moodle”).
3.3.2.2 The Whiteboard
My earlier discussion of the Media English course
focused on the discussion of news reports. This was
because the wiki tool is naturally suited to the kind
of collaborative work needed in the annotation of
media texts. However, the second half of the course
involves the discussion of the use of text in advert­
ising. In this case, the main texts are embedded
with image files and one of the central insights the
students gain in this part of the course is that words
(especially in this environment) cannot be und­
erstood independent of their non­linguistic context
and in this case independent of their relation to the
graphical elements of the advert.
The wiki is not particularly well­suited to this kind
of annotation, though it is possible. The students
can simply add comments into the wiki discussing
salient aspects of each advert – but the comments
cannot be placed next to particular uses of language
as with the newspaper reports and where there are
interactions between text and image, the area of
interaction has to be described rather than shown.
The Covcell Project is therefore developing a
whiteboard tool which will allow users (in groups)
to upload the advert image and annotate the image
together, adding text comments and also using
shape­ and line­drawing tools to highlight particu­
lar features of interest. These annotated images can
then be saved and uploaded either into a forum
posting or into the wiki itself.
The whiteboard launch mechanism will be inte­
grated into the User Presence and Chat tool so that
students can review the list of online users and then
choose either to start a text chat or a whiteboard