Welcome back to the deep dive. We're really glad
you're here with us. Yeah, good to be back. So
today we are going to pull apart a reality that
pretty much defines the modern human experience.
I'm talking about the digital classroom. And
not just for university students logging into,
you know, Canvas or Blackboard. No, no, it's
much broader. Oh, absolutely. If you're doing
corporate compliance training, you're a student.
If you're on a subreddit trying to figure out
how to bake sourdough, you're a student. Or a
Slack channel trying to get your team to agree
on something. You're effectively in an online
classroom. Exactly. And we're all learning in
these digital boxes. But here's the friction
point, and it's the specific reason we wanted
to cover this. Why do some of these online spaces
feel so, so vibrant? Like you're actually connecting
and your brain is firing on all cylinders, while
others just feel like you're shouting into a
void. And worse that, that tick the box fatigue.
You log in, post your mandatory two sentences,
log out. and you feel absolutely nothing. Right.
It feels transactional. It feels dead. So to
figure out why that happens and maybe how to
fix it, we're looking at a really insightful
article today. Yeah, this one's great. It's titled
Interaction in Online Classrooms. It's by Gary
Ackerman, published on hackscience .education
just this January. And what really stands out
about Ackerman's work here is that he's not trying
to sell us on a specific piece of software. He
isn't arguing that You know, Zoom is better than
Teams or something. Right, it's not a product
review. No, he's looking at the architecture
of interaction. Architecture, yeah, that's a
good word for it. It's the perfect word. He breaks
down five distinct models, discussion boards,
blogs, wikis, chat, and video, and he argues
that the tool you choose fundamentally dictates
the human behavior you get. So that's our mission
today. We're going to unpack those five models.
We want to understand the psychology behind them.
Why does one tool make us ramble and another
force us to really reflect? Precisely. Because
if you understand the tool, you can stop blaming
yourself for bad interactions. It's like if you
walk into a cathedral, you whisper. If you walk
into a bar, you shout. Ackerman is showing us
the digital blueprints that cause those behaviors.
OK, so let's start with the grandfather of online
interaction. The tool that Ackerman calls the
most common, and frankly the one I think causes
the most. Collective eye rolling. Uh -huh. The
discussion board. The discussion board. The ubiquitous
discussion board. It's the default setting for
almost every online course or forum in existence.
On paper, the mechanism seems fine. Logical even.
The instructor posts a prompt, I create a post,
you reply to me, we get a thread. It's supposed
to mimic a conversation. Supposed to. But Ackerman
identifies a very specific flaw in this. A trap,
he calls it. The trap of divergence. Exactly.
This is the crucial insight. He points out that
while discussion boards are familiar and easy,
that thread structure almost guarantees that
the focus will shift away from the original topic.
OK, I want to push on that a bit because isn't
the conversation supposed to flow? If I'm replying
to a prompt about, say, the fall of the Roman
Empire, why does the structure make me lose focus?
Well, think about the visual hierarchy of a thread.
You're usually not replying to the main prompt
at the very top of the page. No, I'm not. You're
hitting the reply button on a specific person's
comment. Right. I'm responding to you, not the
teacher. Exactly. So student A posts a thoughtful
analysis of Rome. Student B reads it, but notices
a minor point. Student A made maybe a comparison
to a modern movie or even just a typo. Okay.
Student B then replies to that specific detail.
And then student C jumps in to argue about the
movie and suddenly we're not talking about Rome
anymore. We're arguing about the box office receipts
of Gladiator. That is divergence. Ackerman notes
that the conversation naturally drifts because
the tool encourages interpersonal exchange over
central analysis. It becomes about the reaction.
to the reaction. So the architecture itself encourages
sidebar conversations. It's the noisy cocktail
party effect. That's a great way to put it, which
isn't inherently bad. I mean, if your goal is
just socialization, but if your goal is a rigorous,
focused analysis of a core concept, it's messy.
It's very messy. It relies on students having
incredible discipline to stay on track. And let's
be honest, nobody has that much discipline in
the comment section. Very few do. So Ackerman
contrasts this sharply with the second model,
which kind of offers a solution to that noise.
Blogs. Now this is where I needed the article
to clarify things for me. Because, you know,
a blog just feels like a discussion board with
longer posts. I'm still just typing text into
a box. But Ackerman makes a distinction about
relative length and focus. How does a blog change
the behavior? It comes down to ownership and
a sense of territory. In a discussion board,
your post is just one brick and a long wall.
It's visually equal to everyone else's. In the
blog model, the student is creating a standalone
artifact. It's their own page. It's their house.
Exactly. And Ackerman identifies two main uses
for this. One is just posting reactions, but
the second one is really powerful, the digital
portfolio. A portfolio. So like a collection
over time. Yes. A space where a student records
their work and reflections over an entire course.
It creates a narrative of their learning. But
here's the really interesting psychological shift
he observes. OK. The comments on blogs are fundamentally
different from comments on discussion boards.
Different how? Or they're just nicer? They tend
to be more detailed. And crucially, they stick
to the point. Why is that? It's the architecture
of visiting. When you go to someone's blog to
leave a comment, you're stepping into their space.
You're not just firing off a hot take in a public
square. You're commenting on a significant standalone
piece of work. Ah, okay. And Ackerman notes that
this context leads students to focus more on
the original post rather than veering off into
side chats with each other. That makes a lot
of sense. If I read a 500 word essay you wrote,
I feel a social obligation to respond to your
main thesis. I'm not going to just nitpick one
sentence and start a fight with the guy below
me. It commands a higher level of intellectual
respect. So the takeaway here is if you want
quick, chatty, back and forth, use a board. If
you want depth and you want feedback to actually
align with the goals, the blog is the superior
tool. It's depth versus speed. OK, so those are
the text titans where I write, then you write.
But let's move to the third model. This is the
one that I think is the most radical shift in
mindset. Ah, yes. The collective brain. The wiki.
This is where things get scary for the control
freaks, and I include myself in that group. Yeah,
me too. With boards and blogs I own my words,
my name is on the post. But in a wiki, Ackerman
says it's a single file authored by a group.
That's the defining feature. It's a consensus
document. It isn't a collection of opinions.
It's a single source of truth created by the
class. Which means any group member can edit,
change, or, and this is the terrifying part,
delete existing content. It requires a complete
rewiring of the ego. You have to. Well, you have
to move from this is my post to this is our document.
It forces collaboration in a way that just posting
and replying never will. But I have to ask the
practical question here. We've all been in that
group project. You know the one. One person does
all the work, writes the whole thing, and the
other three people just put their names on it
and say, good job. How does a wiki solve that
free rider problem? It's a valid fear. But Ackerman
addresses this directly. He points out a feature
that's kind of a big brother element, but for
accountability. It's the version history. The
receipt. The ultimate receipt. On the surface,
the final wiki page looks clean. It doesn't show
who wrote what. But the instructor can look behind
the curtain. They can see every single edit,
every deletion, every time stamp. So they can
see that I wrote the entire analysis section
on Tuesday at 2 AM? And you just logged in on
Friday and fixed a comma. Exactly. Ackerman says,
this solves the privacy assessment paradox. You
get the benefit of a clean, cohesive final product,
but the accountability is absolute. The instructor
knows exactly who did the work. That actually
makes me like it a lot more. It changes it from
a group project, where you can hide, to a high
stakes collaboration, where you really have to
show up. It's the highest order of cognitive
skill in this toolkit. You're not just sharing
ideas, you're synthesizing them. Okay, so we've
covered the asynchronous tools things people
do on their own time, but Ackerman then shifts
gears to going live. Right, the synchronous tools,
where we all have to be in the same digital space
at the same time. He lists two main ones, chat
and video conferencing. Let's start with chat.
Ackerman defines this as a synchronous form of
text -based interaction. This feels like the
modern workplace to me. Slack, Discord, the chat
box in a webinar. It is. And the key dynamic
is immediacy. Everyone sees the comments instantly.
But Ackerman creates a very specific constraint
here. He says for chat to actually work for learning,
you need something specific. A fast piping speed.
No, although that helps. You need a leader. A
leader. Why does a text chat need a boss? Because
of the signal -to -noise ratio. Without a leader
to guide the discussion, a synchronous chat with,
say, 20 people becomes a chaotic stream of consciousness.
It's way worse than the discussion board because
it moves so fast. I can visualize that. Three
people typing at once, conversations crossing
over each other, questions getting buried before
they're answered. Exactly. Ackerman says a leader
is needed to maintain focus. They act as the
moderator, saying, OK, pause. Let's look at what
Sarah just said, or let's pivot. They have to
impose some linear order on all that chaos. But
is there a benefit to that chaos? Or is it just
noise? There is a huge benefit, and it's something
spoken conversation doesn't have. Ackerman points
out that chat transcripts can be saved. Right.
If we have a verbal debate in class... Once the
words are spoken, they're gone unless I'm taking
furious notes. Exactly. But in chat, the transcript
allows for later review. It feels ephemeral,
fast and loose, but it's permanent and record.
You can go back and mine that stream for gems
later. Which brings us to the final tool. The
heavy hitter. The one that consumed our lives
for the last few years. Ugh. Video conferencing.
Video conferencing. The closest proxy we have
to being there. Real time video and audio. Ackerman
describes it pretty simply. But I think we need
to talk about why this is so different. It's
a huge leap from text to video. Oh, it's the
bandwidth. And I don't just mean internet speed,
I mean information bandwidth. In every other
tool we've talked about, bores, blogs, wikis,
chat, you're just disembodied text. You're a
font. Yeah. With video conferencing, you reintroduce
the human animal. You see the nod, the confusion,
the laughter, the bored stare. And Akraman mentions
that these systems allow multiple users and recording.
but it's always the best tool. I feel like sometimes
we default to video just because it feels real
even when we don't need it. That's the danger.
It's high intensity. It requires everyone to
be on. Ackerman notes it's great for that face
-to -face connection, but it demands synchronous
attention. You have to be there right now, fully
present. So we have these five tools in our toolkit,
but here's where the article really pivots into
something actionable. He talks about the strategy
of a lynching. Right, this is the so what of
the entire piece. How do we actually use these
things? He mentions a specific rule that I think
every teacher, manager, or community leader needs
to hear. Novelty is associated with attention.
It's a fundamental principle of neuroscience.
The brain ignores what's predictable. It just
filters out the background noise. If a course
is just post on the discussion board by Wednesday,
reply by Friday, week after week. My brain goes
on autopilot. I'm not learning. I'm performing
a ritual. I'm filling out a form. Exactly. So
Ackerman argues that instructors shouldn't just
pick their favorite tool and stick with it. They
need to use a variety of tools. So mix it up.
Not just for fun. but for actual cognitive engagement.
Yes. Do a blog one week to force deep reflection.
Do a live debate in chat the next week for quick
thinking. Build a wiki for the midterm to force
collaboration. The variety itself wakes up the
learner's brain. It's framing. You're changing
the lens through which they see the content.
Precisely. But he also issues a warning here,
especially comparing this to the physical classroom.
He emphasizes that online interaction, for the
most part, tends to be asynchronous. A lag. The
lag. And because of that lag and the lack of
physical cues, he warns that discussions will
naturally veer off topic if left alone. This
goes right back to the discussion board trap
we started with. It does. In a physical classroom,
if a discussion starts going sideways, the teacher
can just raise an eyebrow or clear their throat.
Yeah, or just walk over to the whiteboard. Right.
They can steer the room with body language. You
don't have that online. If I post something crazy
on the discussion board at midnight, the instructor
might not see it until 9 a .m. By then, the threat
is ruined. You can't steer a ship that sailed
three days ago. Exactly. So Ackerman says this
requires careful planning and prompting. You
have to design the constraints into the assignment
itself. You have to be the architect, not just
the moderator. You have to build the walls of
the maze before the students even step into it.
That's a great way to put it. You can't just
set up the tool and walk away. You have to anticipate
the drift. OK, I want to zoom out for a second.
Let's do a quick tactical recap for anyone listening
who's designing a course or leading a remote
team. Sure. Let's bring it down by goal. OK,
scenario one. You want a casual, familiar space
for people to chat. And you don't mind if the
conversation wanders a bit. You want social glue.
Use a discussion board. It's low friction. Everyone
gets it. But keep the prompts tight if you want
to avoid that cocktail party drift. Scenario
two. You want deep, individual reflection. You
want people to really own their ideas and give
thoughtful, respectful feedback. Blogs. Definitely
blogs. It gives them a stage, not just a seat
in the crowd. Okay. Scenario three. You need
the group to agree on a definition, build a policy,
or create one project together. Wiki. But make
sure you tell them you're checking the version
history so everyone contributes. Use that Big
Brother feature for fairness. Scenario 4. Fast,
real -time brainstorming, but you can't get everyone
on video, or maybe you just want a transcript
of the ideas. Chat, but, and I can't stress this
enough, appoint a moderator, be the leader, or
it will just be noise. And finally, you need
to reestablish human connection, read the room,
or handle sensitive topics where tone really
matters. Video conferencing. But use it sparingly
so you don't burn everyone out. Save it for the
high bandwidth moments. And underlining all of
this is the novelty rule. Right. Keep the tools
rotating. Keep the brain guessing. If the students
know exactly what the interaction format will
be for the next 12 weeks, you've already lost
some of their attention. This has really changed
how I look at my screen. It's not just content.
The medium really is the message. When I tell
my team to put it in Slack versus write a memo,
I'm asking for a completely different type of
thinking. You're asking for a different social
behavior. You're designing the interaction. And
usually, we do that unconsciously. Ackerman is
asking us to do it consciously. So here's a final
thought I want to leave everyone with. We talked
about novelty. Ackerman says novelty creates
attention. It makes total sense. But I'm thinking
about how fast technology moves. Incredibly fast.
Right. Video calls felt like magic 20 years ago.
Now they're a Tuesday morning chore. Discussion
boards were revolutionary in the 90s. Now they're
just boring infrastructure. We habituate to everything.
The novelty wears off. So if novelty is the only
thing keeping us engaged, what happens when all
these tools become standard? What happens when
we run out of new ways to frame the interaction?
That is the paradox, isn't it? Does the definition
of interaction need to constantly evolve just
to keep us awake? Or is there a point where the
technology should actually disappear so we can
finally just learn? Ideally, the tools become
transparent. We shouldn't be thinking about the
hammer. We should be thinking about the house.
But until we get there, we have to keep shuffling
the deck to keep people looking at the cards.
Something to think about the next time you're
typing a reply into a thread. Are you contributing
to the divergence or are you building the wiki?
Thanks for joining us on this deep dive. See
you next time.