English 895 Blog Entry 5: Fine! Video, particularly intermodality, is beneficial to OWI

Whithaus, Carl, and Joyce Magnotto Neff. "Contact And Interactivity: Social Constructionist Pedagogy In A Video-Based, Management Writing Course." Technical Communication Quarterly 15.4 (2006): 431-456. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 June 2012.

Carl Whithaus and Joyce Neff (two incredible monarchs – one current, one former), discuss their findings in a study of a management writing course broadcasted through interactive television (ITV) and video streaming (VS). Ultimately, their findings suggest that video-based delivery is a beneficial tool for distance teachers and students as it creates a liveliness that promotes social constructionist pedagogy. 

To situate their study, they argue that many approaches to distance learning have touted online environments as “written” environments, with emphasis on technology like discussion boards (a la Warnock); as a result, video technology and the kind of dialogue needed for collaboration has been ignored (Whithaus and Neff 436). They maintain, “Multiple ways of presenting information and multiple means of interaction help students construct the necessary mental representations that we call learning (qtd. In Whithaus and Neff 436-437). 

From their data, they feel that traditional classroom experiences influence the needs of online students. They want the same kind of contact as F2F classrooms. The liveliness of F2F communication was, for instructors, difficult to plan, but they found that it was necessary to have synchronous communication, particularly on video, in order to accomplish any liveliness.  

Whithaus and Neff favor teaching with various modes and modalities, arguing that variety helps the learning process, even for a class aimed at the study of written communication. This supports an argument in my previous blog post on Maud Chiekansky and Thierry Chanier’s study. They found that intermodality, or the use of a variety of communication forms like audio, text chat, and others, supports the writing process and expedites collaboration (Ciekanski and Chanier 175 and 178). These findings also agree with those in another blog post on Mary Lourdes Silva’s study. She proposed that combining modes of feedback helps facilitate the writing process (Silva 1).  It seems intermodality is key to success in online writing instruction. 

Whithaus and Neff’s study disagrees, however, with a study in another previous blog post, at least in part. Jana Reisslein, Patrick Seeling, and Martin Reisslein report that students are equally satisfied with both ITV and VS, and they are more interested in flexibility and interaction than the form of delivery. Whithaus and Neff reveal that, indeed, interaction (or contact) is vitally important to students; however, students get distracted and even frustrated by the mode of delivery, and this frustration can lead to moments of liveliness and collaboration. 

I recommend this article for anyone interested in the affordances of video in an online writing course. It ended up “talking to” many of my previous blog posts, but it also problematizes Warnock’s enthusiastic support of discussion board technology. I started this blog hoping to find research supporting my assumption that audio could accomplish as much as video without the distraction. Instead, I discovered that intermodality is vitally important in online writing instruction, and the distraction has its benefits. I concede. 

Ciekanski, Maud and Thierry Chanier. "Developing Online Multimodal Verbal Communication To Enhance The Writing Process In An Audio-Graphic Conferencing Environment." Recall 20.2 (2008): 162-182. Academic Search Complete. Web. 21 May 2012.

Reisslein, Jana, Patrick Seeling, and Martin Reisslein. "Video In Distance Education: ITFS Vs. Web-Streaming: Evaluation Of Student Attitudes." Internet & Higher Education 8.1 (2005): 25-44. ScienceDirect. Web. 5 June 2012.

Silva, Mary Lourdes. "Camtasia In The Classroom: Student Attitudes And Preferences For Video Commentary Or Microsoft Word Comments During The Revision Process." Computers & Composition 29.1 (2012): 1-22. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 May 2012.