ABSTRACT
Our experience with the Alaska QUILL teachers’ network provides one answer to the question posed in Riel (1989): “Can electronic networks be used to create cooperative learning conditions for teachers as well as students?” Our answer (as is Riel’s, in describing the AT&T Long Distance Learning Network) is a resounding “Yes.” The Alaska network not only created a cooperative learning experience, but beyond that a community of teachers for whom writing was the critical link. It thus modeled the literacy environments they were attempting to create in their classrooms. Our analysis of the structure and strength of the network identified two categories of characteristics that help explain its success in fostering a community, even given the imperfect nature of the technology on which it was built. Since the network was built on communication, it is not surprising that those categories were audience and purpose.
The salient audience characteristics that led to an evolving community were (a) previous interpersonal connections, and (b) a guaranteed, interested audience. The network participants had met and worked together during the 3-day QUILL training, and some of the teachers had taken classes at the University together before. The audience’s interest was guaranteed to some extent by a common purpose, but grew as well out of the unusual network structure that made Carol a “moderator” as she transferred messages between networks. The assurance that Carol would read and seriously consider most messages gave the network a primarily one-to-many rather than one-to-one communication structure. The semi-public quality of the messages encouraged a “large family” community sense, although it may have contributed to the network’s eventual demise by making participants too dependent on Carol. Still, while the network was operational, everyone knew that their messages would not go unread.
Several interacting elements of purpose also supported the teacher community: (a) common individual goals and a shared group goal, (b) a flat social organization, and (c) a synergy between network and classroom activities. From the beginning, participants on the network shared a common individual goal: to implement QUILL in their classrooms. Communicating about this goal was even more critical in the first few months, before hardware and software problems had been solved. So, a sense of a common problem to be solved provided an initial boost to the network. As the year went on, a group goal emerged as well: to prepare a session for the AACED conference. Thus, teachers shared individual goals and a group goal, both of which relied on the network for success. In the pursuit of these goals, one kind of cooperative learning environment for teachers was supported by the network.
Teachers also shared a purpose with the wider network community that included the QUILL developers: to critique and improve the software. This “flat” social organization added to teachers’ sense of the importance of their comments, because they were likely to be reflected in changes in QUILL. Finally, the network created for teachers a functional learning environment that in many ways mirrored what they were creating in their classrooms. While they were attempting to create situations for their students that made possible purposeful audience-sensitive writing, teachers had access to just such situations for themselves. What they learned about their own writing processes in that setting provided insights that could influence their work in the classroom, as they saw some of the dilemmas they faced in their classrooms reflected in their writing on the network.
These audience and purposes characteristics contributed to an environment that prompted Carol to comment in a message to Andee in February:
It’s amazing how “connected” I’m able to feel to both you and Chip, and I really do believe that this same kind of “connectedness” wouldn’t occur if we were using phones or the mail system. Certainly there would be no way to share thoughts so readily with such an extended group if one were using the traditional ways of communicating. Access to you and Chip is a tremendous boon to all of us . . . both for program information and for the “pats on the back.” (2/15/84)
and Mary Goniwiecha to write to the other teachers in the network:
I must say that I have read all the letters from you all with much enthusiasm each time I’ve received a packet. You bush teachers are so good about communicating with us that we city folk are put to shame! I’m actually in more contact with you through the newsletters than I am with my fellow Fairbanks teachers. Tsk! Tsk!
As the community developed, it turned the network from something new and somewhat strange:
This is the first time I’ve gotten connected on the SOURCE. Hi Carol and Malcolm and anyone else who’s listening out there in outer space. (Helen, 12/9/83)
to a comfortable medium, quite in contrast to “outer space” in just a few days:
Hi you guys, all is going fine and I wanted to say hello and goodnight and Merry Christmas, in case I don’t get on for another week or so . . . (Helen, 12/15/83)
