Page 219 - Štemberger Tina, Čotar Konrad Sonja, Rutar Sonja, Žakelj Amalija. Ur. 2022. Oblikovanje inovativnih učnih okolij. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem
P. 219
Using Academic Online Conference in Teaching and Learning Process
However, this was not a case in building the glossary in the course as there
was no an ‘obligatory passage point’ (Callon 1986) that could be used as a
space for contextualisation, in which different interpretations could interact.
Making not only glossary as a whole but also each its entry a collaborative
effort could provide more such space.
Due to busy students’ schedule, the students did not find enough motives
to discuss other students’ entries as they were not marked for this activity. We
assume that encouraging students to comment on each other entry could
open more opportunities for further circulation, thus further contextualisa-
tion and collaborative emergence created by perplexity and uncertainty of
such debates. Bell and Winn (2000) argue that distributed learning systems,
as self-organising systems, have to cope with uncertainty. The level of uncer-
tainty within them should decrease over time until the participants arrive at
‘an agreement over an understanding.’ However, they suggest that although
this imply the end of learning, achieving certainty about one thing creates
the intellectual tools that allow discovery of uncertainty in something else.
One issue that surprised us is related to Granovetter’s (1983) theory of
strength of weak ties. According to this theory, the most of new informa-
tion in a social network coming from weak ties, as actors with close ties
know each other very well. The theory claims that new information have
more chance to come form weak ties as the most information that circulates
through a network with strong ties are already absorbed by the members of
the network. The new information thus regularly comes from a weak ties. This
was confirmed in the first case, as we have seen, when new students from
other university joined the debate. The weak ties between students from two
universities in two countries brought new information to the network, and
the debate get on dynamics. On the other hand in the case of University of
Zenica, we could not expect many possibilities of new combinations of infor-
mation and thus we did not hope for much creativity in students’ discussion
as the most of students had strong ties between them being for four years
in a small class.
However, we have been surprised with amount of new information circu-
lating through these strong ties. We suspect that the reason for this was that
these ties were not strong ties in every possible context. Although the stu-
dents know well each others, the new nodes in the network were frequently
created by new contexts and new information objects. A student reported
that their presentations were often about the topics that have never been
discussed with her friends at this course, so she was surprised by the fact that
a friend had rich information about it. She described such situations as if the
new information was coming form a weak ties and not form a good friend
219
However, this was not a case in building the glossary in the course as there
was no an ‘obligatory passage point’ (Callon 1986) that could be used as a
space for contextualisation, in which different interpretations could interact.
Making not only glossary as a whole but also each its entry a collaborative
effort could provide more such space.
Due to busy students’ schedule, the students did not find enough motives
to discuss other students’ entries as they were not marked for this activity. We
assume that encouraging students to comment on each other entry could
open more opportunities for further circulation, thus further contextualisa-
tion and collaborative emergence created by perplexity and uncertainty of
such debates. Bell and Winn (2000) argue that distributed learning systems,
as self-organising systems, have to cope with uncertainty. The level of uncer-
tainty within them should decrease over time until the participants arrive at
‘an agreement over an understanding.’ However, they suggest that although
this imply the end of learning, achieving certainty about one thing creates
the intellectual tools that allow discovery of uncertainty in something else.
One issue that surprised us is related to Granovetter’s (1983) theory of
strength of weak ties. According to this theory, the most of new informa-
tion in a social network coming from weak ties, as actors with close ties
know each other very well. The theory claims that new information have
more chance to come form weak ties as the most information that circulates
through a network with strong ties are already absorbed by the members of
the network. The new information thus regularly comes from a weak ties. This
was confirmed in the first case, as we have seen, when new students from
other university joined the debate. The weak ties between students from two
universities in two countries brought new information to the network, and
the debate get on dynamics. On the other hand in the case of University of
Zenica, we could not expect many possibilities of new combinations of infor-
mation and thus we did not hope for much creativity in students’ discussion
as the most of students had strong ties between them being for four years
in a small class.
However, we have been surprised with amount of new information circu-
lating through these strong ties. We suspect that the reason for this was that
these ties were not strong ties in every possible context. Although the stu-
dents know well each others, the new nodes in the network were frequently
created by new contexts and new information objects. A student reported
that their presentations were often about the topics that have never been
discussed with her friends at this course, so she was surprised by the fact that
a friend had rich information about it. She described such situations as if the
new information was coming form a weak ties and not form a good friend
219
