Information Technology Reference
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and therefore are at risk to fail. As this course
was conducted in mid-programme we found data
which confirmed that some students had severe
problems to pass the examinations in previous
courses and that some had a hard time grasping
what they were meant to perform. Therefore we
found it highly interesting to find out if peer as-
sessment could become a sufficient support for
these students.
The course platform used was FirstClass, which
enables both teachers and students to create their
own topic threads for asynchronous discussions. It
also enables synchronized communication through
chat. We decided to use this platform mainly be-
cause it was familiar to all of the students since
it is the standard platform for all teacher-training
at the university where they conducted their stud-
ies. Some of the students were not very familiar
with using a computer or communicating online
when they entered the programme, so we did not
want to confuse them by using a platform that
they were new to.
The 60 students were divided into six smaller
study groups and given their own area in First-
Class. In this area they had access to a message
board for general discussions, one message board
for course related issues, and a special message
board for workshop activities related to the peer
assessment element. In addition there was an area
where all 60 students could interact, including a
virtual café forum. The structure in FirstClass
had already been designed by the teachers in the
course and our only interference was to ask that
our workshop forum be added to this structure.
Asynchronous text messaging was the main
tool for communication for both pedagogical and
practical reasons. One important pedagogical issue
is that asynchronous communication supports the
flexibility that may be the only way for students
to fit their studies in with other life commitments,
and the fact that it can be a democratic aspect as
it allows everyone to make an utterance. The fact
that some of the students were still new to using
computers and communication through ICT was
also of importance for choosing to carry out this
element through text based communication.
The written form in itself promotes a more
systematic use of words than oral communication
in order to compensate for the lack of attributes
such as gesturing, mimic and tone of the voice
(Ong, 1982, Olson, 1994). This need to use more
specified words to clarify meaning to a reader
could possibly support the students' understanding
of forms of communication within the academic
tradition and the specific discipline where they are
conducting their studies. Black (2005, p9) goes
as far as to draw the conclusion that:
Asynchronous discussion allows for reflective
thought and “talk,” components valued in effec-
tive discussion. These same components make
asynchronous discussion more viable than syn-
chronous discussion in fostering higher order
thinking, social construction of meaning, and
reflection.
But asynchronous, written communication
could also be restraining. The intended rich and
deep communication in online text based forums
sometimes came to be dominated by a few active
students while others remain noiseless “lurkers”.
One reason for this may be that some of the students
prioritise their limited time to reading postings by
others rather than spending time expressing their
own views (Fung, 2004). Therefore we don't want
to close any doors to other means of communica-
tion and plan to further our experiences by adding
audio-visual techniques for communication in
future courses to see what these means of com-
munication could offer.
designing the Peer
Assessment element
The course set up for the students in the special
needs teacher programme included two final
examination products which they were meant to
work on during the off-campus weeks. One was
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