ABSTRACT
Here are some examples of unexpected outcomes to e-tivities. You might like to consider how you would handle, or avoid, these situations.
Message 1
The amount of money spent online in Australia is only about 1 per cent of the amount of money spent in shops. I posted this fact to my students and asked them to discuss it. They spent all their time talking about what personally they had or had not bought online, which was not what I expected. Sharon
Message 2
Most of my students are interested in football. We had a fantasy football e-tivity. It started off as a good-natured affair with people chatting about their teams. Then all of a sudden it went mad and very competitive and now there is a group of people who spend their time abusing everyone and anyone, including their colleagues, and the culture is unpleasant. Paul
Message 3
The software was unwieldy and it was difficult to follow a thread through. It was not easy to follow the ‘argument’ from note to note. In the end, everyone started ‘talking’ about quite different things and three separate conversations started. Sally
Message 4
As the deadline for the finish of the e-tivity came close, everyone seemed to come online at once. One evening, seven out of the 12 people involved were online together and messages were popping up all over the place. Felicity
Message 5
We put up an e-tivity asking how people could support or offer to help others online. I thought they would talk about how to use counselling skills online but I was wrong. Some participants posted up the Web sites for their companies, others offered their personal e mails. Mary
