Workshop on Exploring Writing and Agency in Asynchronous CMC

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I would argue overall that asynchronous computer mediated conferencing, if facilitated properly, despite its being essentially a text-based medium, will provide a positive contribution to the realization of the Socratic ideal of learning by co-operative knowledge construction which takes seriously the autonomy of learners, linking to the Enhancing the Student Experience research domain (boundaries between modes of study as well as considering students as a diverse group).

I propose an interactive session which will consider vignettes, about electronic media and small group teaching, in our working culture, linking to the Academic Practice research domain as well as to the Learning and Teaching research domain (boundaries between electronic and other learning resources).

We shall also look at a Socratic dialogue, facilitating critical analyses of the Platonic, the post-structuralist and the Sartrean views of writing. I would argue from this that, whilst Derrida provides an illuminating critique of Plato’s Socrates's objection to writing, and Barthes provides a complementary and clarificatory case why we should regard texts rather than their authors as bearers of meaning, Socrates's stance that writing (in the context, at least, of learning) is nonetheless lifeless holds up unless we adopt a Sartrean view of writing as action.

We may also muse on the undercurrent here about disciplinarity, and boundaries between disciplines, as regards approaching research into higher education, the juxtapositions of empirical and philosophical or other abstract theoretical contributions to investigation into such questions as how to improve student learning.