We wouldn’t have come up with the term onlignment for this blog if we didn’t believe in the value of online communication. Of course we all know the practical arguments in favour of meeting online:
- You save time by avoiding the need for travel to a central location.
- You save money for the same reason, bucket loads of it.
- Oh and you also happen to save the planet.
These are powerful arguments but they’re all about saving resources, about efficiency. What they don’t tell us is what we might gain or lose by switching medium so dramatically. At first glance, it looks like we’re going to be net losers:
- We lose visual contact with our fellow participants (unless of course we have the hardware and the bandwidth to support webcams all round, which might be normal in years to come, but is still a rarity in a work environment).
- We haven’t got those body language clues which tell us who’s paying attention and who’s slipped out of consciousness.
- We can’t interact physically so group hugs are out of the question (some of us won’t be too bothered about that).
- We can’t share a drink in the bar afterwards.
I must admit that, in the past, I have found it quite hard to come up with the counter arguments; the ways in which being online adds to the effectiveness of the experience. But I do have a few suggestions:
- It’s much easier to get an expert who’s based in some remote location to present to your group by web conferencing than it is face-to-face. The time commitment for the expert is reduced from days to a few hours; the cost argument is just as strong.
- Most web conferencing systems allow you to record the session so participants can refer back to the content at any point in the future, and so those who missed the session when it was live can still gain some benefit.
- Text chat serves as a back channel that allows participants to interact with each other to discuss the content, share resources, exchange contact details, etc. without bothering the facilitator. This is really difficult to achieve face-to-face, yet adds a huge amount of value.
- Participants who are not interested in what’s currently being presented or discussed can drop out to do something more useful. Again, this is really difficult to achieve face-to-face without being rude.
Actually that’s quite a reasonable list. Can you think of any other ways in which being online trumps being face-to-face? If so, why not share your ideas by replying to this post?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi,
I think another huge advantage (if NOT using webcams) is that the stigma that goes with visual clues is removed: no-one knows Marie is fat, John is bald, and Jack is half the age of the rest of the group. This can be extremely liberating.
I witnessed this first-hand during a Masters course in Education with the Open University UK: our first group discussions were online. Although we had exchanged CVs, we didn’t pay too much attention to that. It was only when I turned up at the first f2f tutorial that it was very obvious I was 10 years younger than most other students. Other people were a lot quieter than online, maybe because of self-consciousness due to physical appearance: and most of these people were classroom teachers! How much more self-conscious are people not used to speak in front of groups?!
Discussing online (especially in text) lets our brains express themselves without being held back by the body, which in an academic setting is fantastic.
Nadine makes an interesting point. I’d like to build on it. I’ve thought to myself in the past, “I like plays on the radio; the colours are brighter there.” Also, as a spotty youth, when I read “Far from the Madding Crowd” I came to know Bathsheba very well, right down to the swirl of her skirts. Later, Julie Christie in the screen role ticked all my teenage fantasy boxes, but the relationship was not the same. I might have fancied Julie, but it was my own Bathsheba who defined the character; it was she whom I knew, loved and understood. In many teaching situations, reflection and the chance to give rein to the imagination are stifled. Over-stimulation and unnecessary arousal are often the cause. Some of the most engaging webinar and virtual classroom sessions I’ve attended made excellent use of the auditory channel, and resisted overcrowding the screen with gratuitous images, diagrams and text. The human voice conjured images, set the pace and allowed me to add some of the imagery, the highlighting and bullet the points for myself.
your 2nd +ve point resonates hugely,
in a ‘blended’ sense – I’d love it if we all ‘tweeted’, or similar, to each other during face-to-face meetings
more knowledge would be generated and consolidated with far less aural messyness
I think all your points are good, I find the biggest problem is that lack of facility with online tools or even maybe downright suspicion of them. I found when I was working, which thankfully I now don’t (mostly), that I could organize a telephone conference with 5 – 30 people and it all went well but if I decided to try the same thing through a chat room I’d get hardly any people joining.
I never could put my finger on it exactly but I think a lot of people still think the web is just porn and pedophiles, apart from email, and they worry that if they try some of the newer tools then something awful will happen to them.
We need ways of drawing people into it, that feel like things they already can cope with. I’m not sure what those are but I suspect that interactive Television would sound better to many people tan a web conference, even though the electrons are doing the same things.
Web conferencing with the red button on the TV may catch on much quicker than anything Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs offers. If you could hit the red button and then text with your phone, a lot of people would find it easier than a keyboard.