If you reply to this long (15 kB) post please don't hit the reply
button unless you prune the copy of this post that may appear in your
reply down to a few relevant lines, otherwise the entire already
archived post may be needlessly resent to subscribers.
*************************************
ABSTRACT: Should Academic Discussion Lists (ADL's) be like faculty
lounges, collective short-term working memories, or academic
journals? This post argues that ADL's might best serve as BOTH
faculty lounges and collective short-term working memories. The
inclusion of the latter would justify the academic protocol that
characterizes pedantic posts such as this one, even though such
protocol may chill those who prefer faculty-lounge-type
conversations.
*************************************
I apologize in advance for the academic nature of this post.
Subscribers who shrink from scholastic screeds are urged to hit the
delete button.
In response to my post "Team-Based Learning (was Re: TBL and
Conceptests)" [Hake (2009a)], Michael Sweet (2009), of the
TeamLearning-L list, after hitting the reply button so as to
redistribute Hake (2009a) to all subscribers, wrote:
". . . .E-mail listservs are not academic journals, and I fear that
your laudable desire to follow academic protocol might in fact have a
'chilling effect' upon the collegial conversations you hope to
inspire. This is more of a 'faculty lounge' than a conference floor.
. . . ."
In "Over Two-Hundred Education & Science Blogs" [Hake (2009b)], I
discussed the Academic Discussion List Sphere (ADLsphere) and the
Blog Sphere (Blogosphere): Appendix A indicates some strengths and
weaknesses of each, and Appendix B considers those spheres as
HARBINGERS OF A COLLECTIVE SHORT-TERM WORKING MEMORY, as emphasized
for the Blogosphere by Michael Nielson (2008).
I agree with Michael Sweet that "listservs are not academic
journals." They cannot, of course, serve as *permanent* academic
memories as do *peer-reviewed* journals, both print and online. But
I disagree with Michael's apparent belief that listservs (more
generally ADL's since LISTSERV is a trademark of L-Soft
<http://www.lsoft.com/>) should ONLY be like faculty lounges. Rather
I think their best use might be as BOTH faculty lounges and
collective short-term working memories.
As faculty lounges PLUS collective short-term working memories, the
use in ADL's of *both* non-academic and academic protocol can be
justified, the latter even despite the fact that it might chill those
who prefer faculty-lounge-type conversations.
What's wrong with the ADLsphere as ONLY a faculty lounge? In Section
A1b, p. 33, of "Over Two-Hundred Education & Science Blogs [Hake
(2009b)] I listed "SOME WEAKNESSES OF THE ADLSPHERE" [bracketed by
lines 'HHHHHH. . . . ."]
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
(1) LITTLE COLLABORATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS
In the ADDENDUM to "Over Sixty Academic Discussion Lists. . ." [Hake
(2007)], I wrote (slightly edited): "In my opinion, many Academic
Discussion Lists fail [paraphrasing Roschelle and Pea (1999)] 'to
move beyond forums . . . .[such as faculty lounges]. . . . for
exchanging insular tidbits and opinions to structures which rapidly
capture knowledge-value and foster rapid accumulation and growth of
the community's capability . . . providing tools to allow
contributors to share partially completed resources, and enable
others to improve upon them.' "
(2) SOME LIST OWNERS:
(a) Utilize antediluvian software that does not provide useful
archives and/or search engines.
(b) Regard cross-posting as sinful rather than synergistic, evidently
wishing their lists to remain inbred and isolated [see, e.g.:
"Cross-Posting - Synergistic or Sinful?" [Hake (2005a)]. . . .
.[outstanding examples are EdStat-L, ITFORUM, and PsychTeacher.]. . .
(c) Do not recognize the "fair use" provision of U.S. copyright law
as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law, Title 17,
according to which copyrighted material (including discussion-list
posts) can be distributed, if it's done so without profit, to those
who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research and educational purposes. For more
information see at <http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml>.
(d) Close the archives of their lists to non-subscribers, thus
impeding the flow of information from their lists to the web and
hence to the outer world - see the lower part of Fig.1 in Hake
(2009b). Such blockage is sometimes justified on grounds that it
prevents harvesting of email addresses by SPAMers, but for lists
running on LISTSERV software, SPAM'ers can be prevented from
harvesting email addresses by the simple strategy of requiring log-in
by list
subscribers before addresses are made visible. . . .[as is the case
for TeamLearning-L and the AERA lists :-), but NOT PhysLrnR :-( ] .
. . . .
(3) SOME SUBSCRIBERS:
(a) ignore common-sense posting suggestions [Hake (2005b)] that would
facilitate efficient communication;
(b) are unfamiliar with the technical and social aspects of ADL's as
addressed by Dan MacIsaac (2000) in his valuable article "Communities
of on-line physics educators." A cursory Google search failed to
uncover counterparts of MacIsaac's article for other disciplines;
(c) fail to utilize academic references or to even notice such
references in posts (except to inveigh against them as "busywork"
[Eckel (2003)];
(d) do not take advantage of hot linking - a prime but drastically
underused capability of the internet;
(e) appear reticent to engage in discussions of educational research,
development, or assessment - . . . . . . .
(f) fail to take responsibility for their postings by hiding behind pseudonyms.
(4) MOST SUBSCRIBERS: fail to search the archives before posting -
therefore the same material is often discussed over and over de novo
with little increase in understanding from year to year.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands.
<[log in to unmask]>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/>
<http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com/>
"...we use working memory to help create new ideas, and there seems
to be no limit to those ideas. They just pour out of us. The power
of this limited part of the brain is almost inexhaustible."
James Zull (2003, p. 183)
"Even Albert Einstein needed help occasionally. Einstein's greatest
contribution to science was his theory of gravity, often called the
general theory of relativity. He worked on and off on this theory
between 1907 and 1915, often running into great difficulties. By
1912, he had come to the astonishing conclusion that our ordinary
conception of geometry, in which the angles of a triangle add up to
180 degrees, is only approximately correct, and a new kind of
geometry is needed to correctly describe space and time. This was a
great surprise to Einstein, and also a great challenge, since such
geometric ideas were outside his expertise. Fortunately for Einstein
and for posterity, he described his difficulties to a mathematician
friend, Marcel Grossman. Grossman said that many of the ideas
Einstein needed had already been developed by the mathematician
Bernhard Riemann. It took Einstein three more years of work, but
Grossman was right, and this was a critical point in the development
of general relativity. . . . . . . . . . IS IT POSSIBLE TO SCALE UP
THIS CONVERSATIONAL MODEL, AND BUILD AN ONLINE COLLABORATION MARKET
TO EXCHANGE QUESTIONS AND IDEAS, A SORT OF COLLECTIVE WORKING MEMORY
FOR THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY?"
Michael Nielson (2008)
REFERENCES [Tiny URL's courtesy <http://tinyurl.com/create.php>.]
Eckel, E. 2003. "Re: The bad effects of physics first." PhysLrnR post
of 23 Nov 2003 08:06:45- 0500; online at <http://tinyurl.com/2dtoac>.
Hake, R.R. 2005a. "Cross-Posting - Synergistic or Sinful?" Post of 1
Nov 2005 08:37:12-0800 to ITFORUM and AERA-L. Online at at
<http://tinyurl.com/2m59v4>.
Hake, R.R. 2005b. "Fourteen Posting Suggestions," online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0507&L=pod&P=R12861&I=-3>.
Post of 23 Jul 2005 11:38:29-0400 to AERA-C, AERA-G, AERA-GSL,
AERA-H, AERA-I, AERA-J, AERA-K, AERA-L, ASSESS, EvalTalk, Math-Learn,
PhysLrnR, POD, STLHE-L, TeachingEdPsych, and TIPS.
Hake, R.R. 2007. "Over Sixty Academic Discussion Lists: List
Addresses and URL's for Archives & Search Engines," online at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/ADL-L.pdf> (640 kB), or as ref.
49 at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>. This will soon be
updated so as to include TeamLearning-L and TrDev-L.
Hake, R.R. 2009a. "Team-Based Learning," online on the OPEN!
AP-Physics, Net-Gold, PhysLrnR, and TeamLearning-L. Abstract only to
AERA-A, AERA-B, AERA-C, AERA-D, AERA-J, AERA-K, AERA-L, ASSESS,
Biopi-L, Chemed-L, DrEd, EdResMeth, EvalTalk, IFETS, LRNAAST-L,
Math-Teach, PBL, Phys-L, POD, RUME, STLHE-L, TeachEdPsych, TIPS,
TrDev-L, & WBTOLL-L. The *potential* readership of this post is
about 16,000. Doubtless Larry Michaelsen will note a huge spike in
the sales of his books on Team Learning ;-)
<http://teambasedlearning.apsc.ubc.ca/?page_id=34>. For a guide to
discussion lists see Hake (2007). For a defense of cross-posting see
Hake (2005a).
Hake, R.R. 2009b. "Over Two-Hundred Education & Science Blogs," 30
March; online at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/Over200EdSciBlogsU.pdf> (2.6
MB). ). The abstract is also at
<http://hakesedstuff.blogspot.com/2009/03/over-two-hundred-education-science.html>
with a provision for comments.
MacIsaac, D.L. 2000. "Communities of on-line physics educators,"
Phys. Teach. 38(4): 210-213; online at
<http://physicsed.buffalostate.edu/PHYS-L/TPTApr00art.pdf> (196 kB).
Discusses technical and social aspects of discussion lists and gives
reference information on four major physics education lists: Phys-L,
Physhare-L, PhysLrnR, and TAP-L.
Nielsen, M. 2008. "The Future of Science: Building a Better
Collective Memory" APS News, 17(10). The full version appears on
Nielson's blog at <http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/?p=448>. Note the
responses and counter responses following Nielsen's article.
Roschelle, J & R. Pea. 1999. "Trajectories from Today's WWW to a
Powerful Educational Infrastructure," Educational Researcher,
June-July: 22-25, 43; online as a pdf at
<http://ctl.sri.com/publications/displayPublication.jsp?ID=120>; see
also <http://www.stanford.edu/~roypea/HTML1%20Folder/articles.html>.
Sweet, M. 2009. "Re: Team-Based Learning (was Re: TBL and
Conceptests)," TeamLearning-L post of 15 May 2009 21:38:36-0500;
online at <http://tinyurl.com/qjt8nv>.
Zull, J.E. 2003. "The Art of Changing the Brain" Stylus;
publisher's information at
<http://www.styluspub.com/Books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=44780>. A
Google book preview is online at <http://tinyurl.com/oo6vqp>.
|
