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Reflection as Coherence

Conclusion -- Works Cited

Reflection has one last, very important, place in the computer networked environment due to the nature of discourse in this setting. As Lester Faigley noticed in his book Fragments of Rationality, computer discourse tends to be more multivocal, more fragmented, and simply more—more information, commonly with elements of serious content mixed with trivial content. Often computer discourse amounts to an overwhelming quantity of information to make sense of. A common experience I have after engaging in a synchronous discussion is one of asking, “What happened?” I know there were moments of interesting insights and views expressed, but any meaning I can pull out of the discussion is fragmented like a jigsaw puzzle that has been tossed on the floor in pieces. Reflection, then, is the necessary step to help those engaged in computer-mediated communication make sense of the discourse.

Ken Schweller, the accomplished MOO programmer behind many of the educational objects used in educational MOOs, describes synchronous discussions in this way: "Maintaining conversational coherence is perhaps the biggest challenge in online chat situations. ...Competing conversational threads emerge continuously to the consternation of inexperienced users" ("The Useful Art of Chatting"). We need reflection to help us select, synthesize, and coalesce meaning from this scattered and undifferentiated mass of communication. As Schweller states, "an unreflected transcript is not worth the screen it was illuminesced on." Otherwise, the discussion is an experience that happens and is gone with no lasting effect.

We can see a good example of the use of reflection for coherence in Fred Kemp's writing cycle used earlier in the article. The first four steps show reflection being used to make sense of a real-time synchronous discussion to start a writing assignment:

1	Instructor presents a prompt for discussion via synchronous chat	Invention
2	After thirty minutes of “discussion,” students write for ten minutes on a word processor summarizing the gist of the discussion	Reflection
3	Students save the ten minutes of writing and the synchronous discussion to diskette. The students are asked to read the discussion at home and delete all but three of the most interesting points from discussion	Reflection
4	From these three points, the students are asked to create a thirty-line draft discussing whatever issue they took from the discussion.	Reinvention

Notice how students are asked twice to review the transcript to make sense of it and to pick out what is more significant for them. Without reflecting upon the transcript, students would not be able to use it as successfully to start their paper.

Schweller also describes a useful technique for having students reflect upon transcripts of synchronous discussions. He has students take home a copy of the transcript and edit it, "cutting, moving snippets of conversation to where they logically belong.. removing farts, burps, waves etc... ." He even has students add editorial comments to their processed version of the discussion. These new texts are then brought into class, posted into a bulletin board, and used as the next catalyst in the learning cycle.

Reflection, then, is a necessary step we need to lead our students through to help them make better sense of the fragmented and overwhelming amount of information in a computer learning environment.

Next: Conclusion