The Media Equation and how it impacts my work.

I was not surprised by anything I read in the Media Equation paper. I enjoyed it very much and read the whole thing - not just what was assigned. I depend on the Media Equation while teaching my online class. I try to make the language I use friendly and engaging. I want my students to participate and that is more likely the more approachable I am.

To illustrate this, I have assigned a JavaScript Digital Storytelling slide show. To help pace them and model for them, I am posting a partially completed JavaScript slide show of my own. Every so often I update it to reflect an effort to comply with the posted rubrics. I check off the requirements as I meet them with my latest submission. The students are following me with tweaks to their own slide shows. We all suggest improvements to each slide show submission. The Media Equation is balanced and all is right with the world. I am being polite; they are being polite.

I wonder what the critiques would be like if there was a "moderator Instructor" to which we sent our critiques of the submissions? I don't think they would be nearly so polite but they would be much more informative. Hm-m-m, team teaching, anyone? That sounds like a very interesting idea. I would like to try that if I could get permission to do so and the cooperation of another Instructor.

This assignment has been a bridge between the face-to-face and the online, however. I have gotten to know what my students look like and have met their families or become familiar with their businesses and their hobbies through the slide shows. We have formed a real community through this slide show and we are nice to one another even though we are actually only digital constructs. We are real to each other through pictures and polite helpfulness in the nature of shared code and design suggestions. I think all of us are just loving this.

Also, my work for this class is communications in distance education. This paper was really right on point. I think I can set the tone in any online class I teach just by the formality or informality of my language, the amount of slang I use and how warm or remote my language makes me seem. With the appropriate language, the transactional distance can be reduced. What ever I do, it may as well be the real me - because that is how it is going to be perceived by my students. So, be careful, Suzon. To them, you are as you seem.

In addition, I can understand why something like Elluminate Live! provides the same capabilities on both sides of the equation. The part about Modality Matching was made so meaningful by my limited experience with Elluminate Live!.

Josh's post a couple of weeks ago talked about a teacher in Washington and a video connection with his students. They both could participate. This is so much more polite than a video lesson with no student participation.

I really enjoyed this reading.