I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the aesthetics of the virtual space, and how it can impact the amounts and types of traffic to an online learning tool. What got me thinking about this was my attempt to answer the question of how weblogs used as instructional tools were different than “learning management systems” like Blackboard and WebCT. Blackboard, like the course blogs I advocate, can easily transfer a wide-array of file types, and allows for participant discussion (though in a significantly less flexible manner than blogs). If the primary benefit of the blog over Blackboard as an instructional tool lay in its malleability to the purpose of a teacher, then I would say that running a close second in terms of a separating difference is the aesthetic potential of a blog over a Blackboard site. And, obviously, those two points are related.
I’ve seen some good Blackboard sites in the past, and have used it myself effectively in the teaching of the American history survey. I’ve never, however, heard any faculty member or any student say “what a great Blackboard site! Wow!” Instructional blogs that I’ve seen in circulation, however, have “wowed” frequently. This is likely not a newsflash to anyone with experience using these technologies.
The “wow” factor, on the surface, seems to have little pedagogical value, and it’s vulnerable to accusations of the elevation of style over substance. But I don’t think it should be completely discounted as an element of our efforts to bring students to our material through online teaching tools. Creating an inviting virtual space, with a logic and an aesthetic that flow from the purpose and materials of the course, can help students see that space as an extension of the learning that is happening concurrently in the classroom. It can help them feel a sense of belonging and a sense of ownership, and can help them feel that they are participating in something unique. I can’t help but believe that this feeling translates to the way that students approach the material and the assignments on the site. I’ve seen it work well and not so well, and I look forward to exploring it more in my teaching. Blackboard’s aesthetic, with its heinous buttons and familiar logic, tends to generalize online learning. It’s much more likely to produce a “duh” than a “wow.”
I don’t want to open a war on Blackboard here, because I do think it can be effective as a teaching tool, and it’s certainly easier to master than a blog. I just want to drive home the point that we are dealing with spaces here, and virtual though they may be, how they look and act impacts the way we teach in them and the ways that students learn in them. When we’re in the classroom, there are different methods we can use to engage students: mastery of the material, ability to spin a tale, and asking probing and demanding questions are a few that come to mind. Those methods are still available to us in the virtual space, to be sure, but face-to-face contact is not. Just as the personality of the teacher is an important element of his or her ability to engage a class, so too is the personality of an online teaching space. This personality is developed through an attention to aesthetics.
Hi Luke,
I think there are two related issues here: tweaking the functional design of the blog, and tweaking the aesthetic design (and of course, these overlap).
The ability to tweak the functional side of the design matters more to me, as it makes more of a difference to what happens. For example, removing buttons you don’t need, adding buttons that you do, in the order in which you need them–all of this design tweaking that the blog, taken together, can make a substantial difference to the user’s experience.
Sometimes I think we get so used to things being given to us as is, and if they require lots of work to alter (or are impossible to alter), we just put up with it. Blackboard is like that, for me. Sure, it’s functional, and can enhance a course, no question.
But using a carefully-designed blog with all the tweaks you want or need is like living in a carefully-designed home. (It’s a lot easier to make those little tweaks in your virtual space, thankfully!)
Added to those design tweaks that enhance functionality, aesthetics can make a blog feel inviting. This sense that you want to stick around a while may be subconscious, but it is not to be discounted.
Reply to Kate Moss
Kate and Luke,
You all are on to something really important. Learning spaces are by no means secondary or frivolous to the learning experience, they shape and define it just as much as the city you live in or the apartment you inhabit does (as you point out perfectly, Kate). I would argue that designing an inviting, interactive, and dynamic virtual learning space must be as integral as fashioning one’s syllabus in preparation for the semester, if you are maaking a foray into hybrid/blended/online learning(or whatever it is know as these days).
Creating a space for people to discuss, interact, and share is in many ways the goal of the classroom, whether online or face-to-face. A drab interface with a cookie-cutter mentality, a la BlackBoard, goes a long way towards undermining the best laid plans of mice and men. Check out this site as an excellent example of a hospitable, inviting and beautifully designed (if I must say so myself) virtual learning space. Link.
The hits just keep on coming at cac.ophony.org. And hey, why not wage war on the corporate logic of elearning we have been forcee-fed over the last 10 years? If colleges and universities are not tasked to rethink, redesign and reaaappropriate the spaces in which they teach from corproate leviathans, than why the hell did I get into this business in the first place?
Great stuff!!!
Reply to Jim
Wonderful post, Luke. I think you’re exactly right about the impact that the aesthetics of virtual space can have on learning. The “wow” factor cannot be ignored. The fact that those of us looking to move beyond Blackboard feel as though we have to find ways to defend some of the most basic tenets of web design is a sign of how far academia has to go on this issue.
The practical hurdle that those of us who want to move beyond Blackboard face is the institutional investment that our universities have made to this learning system. In my own teaching, I’m trying to work both within and outside of Blackboard in a way that allows me to have the best of both worlds.
Lots to think about here — great post.
Reply to Matt
I am really interested in this discussion, primarily because it validates what I have been discovering with my course blogs.
I teach 7th and 8th grade science and have been using blogs with my students for about 6 weeks. The pedagogical part was straightforward to me: promoting literacy in the content area; collaboration as a learning/scientific tool; and developing competency in technologies that are likely to be important to the students.
They were concerned with usability and with the aesthetics of the blog (I used an edublogs.org blog and spent a good deal of time selecting the template). I wanted them to experience the “wow” factor and to feel like they were doing something cool.
Looking forward, I am looking forward to developing more customization as well.
Reply to Gerald