Social learning analytics to describe the learners' interaction in online discussion forum in Moodle

In an open online discussion forum, where there is no fixed structure or a facilitator like a course forum without any assigned themes, every participant is a facilitator shaping the direction and depth of a conversation. How can we as designers then make sure it leads to an engaging learning community that learners keep coming back to beyond the given course period? This paper reports on sequential analysis of 172 posts in 32 threads and close reading of two threads from an open online discussion forum in a free open online course, specifically looking at the impact of participant actions as facilitative moves, to gain better understanding of the types of actions that lead to deeper and sustained engagement with the ideas of interest. Sequential analysis is an approach that estimates which types of sequences of posts or interactions are most likely to occur in a threaded discussion. The results showed that sharing personal experiences attracted most responses, implying that it is important to encourage participants to share questions or cases connected to their personal experiences. In addition, somewhat paradoxically, we found that posts acknowledging responses tend to conclude and close down the conversation while posts that ask diverging questions tend to attract more discussion.

Download Full-text

The Speech Act of Request in Computer-Mediated Communication

Deskripsi Bahasa ◽

10.22146/db.v3i1.395 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 1-8

Author(s):

Maria Miwita Rosari

Keyword(s):

Speech Acts ◽

Speech Act ◽

Online Discussion ◽

Computer Mediated Communication ◽

Discussion Forum ◽

Law School ◽

Mediated Communication ◽

Online Discussion Forum ◽

Computer Mediated ◽

Politeness Strategies

Through conversation ones establish relationship with others and keep channels open for further relationships. Politeness strategies and issues have been the focus of a number of studies. The way ones request for something to others depends on some factors such as the context they are in and the interlocutors they talk to. This article aims at developing the latest discussion on politeness phenomena by paying attention to the specifics of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) settings specifically an online discussion forum. This article attempts to identify how speech act of request is performed in Top Law School (TLS) online discussion forum. The data were analyzed to observe the forms of speech act of request and the types of speech act of request performed in the online discussion forum. The findings of this paper revealed that the forms of speech act of request are expressed by declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentence. Moreover, the types of speech act of request employed by the users are directive, indirective, and literal speech acts. The writer believes that the study will be beneficial and a good reference for future researchers in conducting research on pragmatics under the same topic. Hopefully, it will enrich readers’ knowledge and understanding of the speech act of request and the politeness in CMC.

Download Full-text

Designing a Social Learning Analytics Tool for Open Annotation and Collaborative Learning

10.35542/osf.io/63ru8 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Jeremiah (Remi) Kalir

Keyword(s):

Distance Learning ◽

Social Learning ◽

Collaborative Learning ◽

Learning Analytics ◽

Learning Sciences ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Collaborative Annotation ◽

Social Learning Analytics

This book chapter recounts one approach to ethically co-designing a public dashboard that reports social learning analytics and encourages learners’ collaborative annotation across open texts and contexts. As a design narrative in the learning sciences, this chapter is a reflective, first-hand account organized around three related objectives: 1) Naming the theoretical stances toward open and social learning that informed design and research; 2) Describing key decisions and trade-offs pertinent to four iterations of a social learning analytics dashboard; and 3) Considering epistemological, technological, and infrastructural implications for the development and use of social learning analytics in open, flexible, and distance learning.

Download Full-text