Haythornthwaite (2009) and Duguid (2006) discuss the modes and quality of online peer production and the reward systems. These concepts about online peer production help me reflect on the difference between online class discussion and face-to-face class discussion.
The shift from contribution to retrieval
Peer production through computers can be easily stored and retrieved. Haythornthwaite (2009) indicates the value of information resources has shifted from contribution to retrieval. In educational perspectives, the strength of text mediation lies in the opportunities for learners to think, reflect, and revise their ideas (Lotman, 1988; Wertsh & Biven, 1992). For teachers who emphasize the importance of process rather than product, the retrieval of the process of learning can be easily achieved by means of the computer. In a face-to-face class, many bright ideas appear transiently and then disappear. Those ideas could be the precious resources to facilitate learning if learners had access to them every time when they needed.
Engagement
Engagement, the experience of being active, is important for peer production. In online peer production, either lightweight peer production (LWPP) or heavyweight peer production (HWPP), contributors should get involved in the tasks in order to assist a project to be completed. Take Wikipedia for instance, users, based on their own interests, are allowed to contribute to a new or given topic. They are also allowed to remove old comments by providing reasons and expand a topic by providing verifiable evidence. The sense of constantly interacting with others to refine the knowledge in order to approach accuracy is one of the spirits of this open source website. The constant interaction may increase one’s social presence, giving the individual a feeling of being there with others (Haythornthwaite, 2009). The screenshot below shows the three out of five fundamental principles of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia allows disagreement and take care of avoiding unnecessary flaming. The tolerance of disagreement may be absent in face-to-face class, where students may be embarrassed to challenge their peers’ ideas in person. However, some people prefer talking face-to-face because they can easily tell their interlocutors’ attitudes toward an issue by recognizing their facial expressions. In an online environment where these cues are missing, I would say the use of emoticons may more or less compensate for the absence of paralanguage.
In addition, Wikipedia encourages conversation to resolve disputes. It is believed to increase its users’ participation since Duguid (2006) said allowing anyone to make changes to the text without discussion is unlikely to attract people willing to work hard on an entry. The following screenshot shows one part of the talk page of Taiwan independence. The contributor Jiang expressed her thought of the topic and the reason she deleted some content.
In a face-to-face class, class discussion usually focuses on consensus. For example, in a face-to-face reading class, after the group members read an article, they have to discuss with their group members the discussion questions. One of it is “what will you do if you were a patient in the situation?” There are various possible answers. However, based on my course observation most of the time one group member first expressed his opinion and then other group members would agree with him. That’s all. The group conversation ended. Sometimes some other group members would continue the conversation within the frame of the first speaker’s idea. In other words, the group conversation quickly reached consensus, but meanwhile lost heteroglossia. The heteroglossia in group conversation functions as meaning negotiation, which is important in Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development.
The quality of peer production
Duguid (2006) points out a problem of online peer production; that is, the quality of latest post does not guarantee better quality than its predecessors. It is because people work independently may concern little about the consistency of their contribution to the project as a whole. One of the examples is how different Wikipedian contributors summarized how Defoe became famous. The meaning of the posts somehow changes how Defoe became famous from the original post. I think the problem occurs mostly due to the nonobligation to go through the whole posts, so contributors misinterpret the meaning of the previous posts and affect the latter contributors who also do not go through the whole posts. The situation is less likely to happen in in-person peer production because most of the time we cannot actively ignore what our interlocutors are saying or choose only a certain part that we want to listen to. With regard to it, we are less likely to misinterpret our interlocutors’ words, caused by not paying attention to the whole context. Therefore, one of the ways to stop piling errors on top of errors is to ask individuals to read the original post before reading the subsequent posts or before posting their own comments. In this way, each contributor can put his / her comments into context.
