|
|
|
|
The names of the participants in the study have been changed to provide anonymity. Carl. A thirty-six year old father of an infant, Carl is very confident in his writing skills. He enrolled in the class not because he had to but because it looked interesting. He considers himself "a very personable student." Despite the fact that he "enjoys interacting with the instructor in the class," he found the online class "a very pleasant surprise." Cassandra. A forty-nine year old mother of three and employee of the campus food service, Cassandra does not like to write nor does she feel as if she can do it well. She "decided to register for the online composition class rather than the conventional classroom" out of curiosity. She wanted "to see how I could use the computer as a means to learn and to communicate." Julie. A twenty-three year old married student with one child,
Julie considers herself "pretty shy." At the beginning of this project, she
described herself an average writer. She stated, "I don't normally follow the steps
in the textbook. Outlines is out. I don't follow it. I just write a lot of notes and put
them together." Monica. Twenty-years old and single, Monica does not feel
comfortable with writing. She notes, "Writing is the worst nightmare for me, because
I [am]always having trouble to express my words in writing." Nor does she feel very
comfortable with her skills, yet believes it will be important to her future. Robert. One of the least active in terms of participation in the class Robert is an eighteen year old male who dislikes writing but who feels he writes well. He was taking 18 credits at the time of the class but missed the first few weeks. He has been known to "stay on a chat room from guam for many hours" and considers them "very addicting." Steve. A twenty-two year old male and an avid skateboarder, Steve enjoys writing and feels he writes well. According to his biographical note, he "usually start(s) by blurting things out on a page with my pen and paper. Or more often when I have access to it, I 'JAM' on my computer." As for computer use, he notes, "Often times my friends and I would and could go for 18 hours on-line straight . . . (what a rush . . .)." Sue. A twenty-three year old female, Sue enjoys the writing process but has no confidence in writing. She indicates that writing will be important for her future. She is unmarried without children. The lack of computer skills almost caused her to drop. Dr. Jonathan Sutherland. Jon Sutherland is the teacher of the class. Dr. Sutherland has been a teacher of composition for over twenty years. He is one of the pioneers of his college in online English education. In addition to his class activity, he is active in the online professional communities, OCC-L (Online College Classroom List) and TWO-L (Teaching Writing Online List), two discussions groups dedicated to online learning. The experience of these nine students in Dr. Sutherland 's first online writing class provides rich data. Plunged into one of the first classes of its kind, students were expected to not only learn the topic for which they enrolled but to also somehow cope with the technology pervading the virtual classroom environment. They had to manage making meaning from only the words on the page, as those other conduits of communication, such as body language, were not available to them. In meeting and learning about these students in the same way they met their peers and their obligations of the class, I was reminded what we bring to the classroom informs our experience. In the following chapter, I attempted to portray those first-order experiences, "as they present themselves" (Gurwitsch, 1966, p. 46) and depict how this particular group of students grappled with learning writing in the virtual environment.
Subsections of Chapter IV in Order of Apperance
|
|
Write to Jan -- jan@js.spokane.wa.us Last Updated 10/20/01These pages designed, maintained and copyrighted by Jan Strever, © 2001. |
