Why do educators hate mailing lists?

[Donald Asbridge]

Great e-mail, Marielle & Good Day All,

Here's all I hope from the mailing list (my two cents):
a) issues about the product (updates, bugs, cost, service, etc.)
b) issues related to the product (conferences, development, add-ons, 
etc.)
c) code (open-source, snippets, actual code I can use)
d) accomplishments (new stacks/applications and uses)
e) links (your internet site with your stacks, products, etc.)
f) other interesting things related to the product.

I spent many years working with HyperCard... I have many old stacks and 
projects I hope to (once summer vacation hits) update with Revolution.  
Yes, I want to use Revolution in education (I still use many of my old 
HyperCard projects in education)... that's my noble goal... but my 
ultimate goal is of course to somehow make some money with some great 
applications!

My main issue is the cost.  When I first looked a year or two ago at 
RR, I said, "$900!  Forget it!"  I ended up purchasing REALbasic... and 
was disappointed with the product (just my own opinion, I know others 
seem to love it).  But I downloaded the demo version of RR and it will 
meet my needs... I now just need to find a way to come up with the $900 
to get it... and since I work in education, that kind of money isn't 
just sitting around!

Therefore, I am most interested in anything related to my goals, but do 
learn from others' views and experiences.  That's why I'm on the 
list...

Don A.




On May 11, 2005, at 3:34 AM, Marielle Lange wrote:

> Hi Judy,
>
> Minor issue:
> Like you, in principles, I like to keep up with "fresh" information 
> and know what is happening in the world (on the themes I am interested 
> in). In the hotest part of the teaching season, [I spare you the 
> details on how busy I can be], though, I just prefer to shut down any 
> distracting channels (doesn't do any good to my morale when emails 
> accumulate in my mailbox and it just become one more thing I should 
> find the time to do... but do not have the time to do). I tried to use 
> the web-archive, but that's really time consuming as I cannot really 
> directly click reply to any email...
>
> To this, the logical answer is Ok,  let's go for gname and let each 
> person choose the way they prefer to read the messages on this list  
> :-)))))). End of the email.
>
> But Gname vs mailing list is not the real issue for me.
> (1)
> This is only *some* of the lists I like to check up from time to time:
> On computer-based education: 
> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/mailinglists/category/X2.htm. There are 80 
> of them, with a lot of repetition, many empty messages with no 
> information. :-(((((((( On programming, I can do basic to advanced 
> programming in awk, php, basic, visual basic for application, java, 
> javascript, runtime revolution, python, perl, java, c++.... In the 
> context of my research activity, I need to keep up with a variety of 
> techniques (statistical analyses, computer modelling, neuroimaging, 
> etc.). I am not interested in having to check up every single message 
> in gname. I usually do not take the time to do that. What I put in my 
> bookmarks are urls of websites where I can rapidly find the 
> information I am looking for.
>
> (2)
> What is it that we would like to achieve, as a community? What 
> structure do we need to set up to hep us reach our goals? In my 
> opinion, mailing lists encourage repetition and surface treatment of 
> each issue. Fine for questions about programming tricks... maybe we 
> need more continuity on education issues (keep a discussion on some 
> issues over a period of a few months or possibly more). Typically, on 
> a mailing list (mailbox or gname), I avoid to reply to an email that 
> had been posted more than a week ago. It's probably the same for 
> others. On a forum or a wiki, it does not matter if you give your 5 
> cents a week or a year after the original post.
>
> Close the door, I will come in by the window to try to convince you 
> that, for discussion of "education" issues we need a format that 
> allows for "interspaced" contributions.
>
> (3)
> <Adapted or cut/paste from Scarff>. Open source projects attempt to 
> create solutions to ill-structured problems in a dynamic and 
> inherently open-ended process. In complex design activities, there are 
> often no optimal solutions or any straightforward notions of the 
> "right answer." Learning in these contexts is not about the 
> acquisition of facts but involves the __continuous activities of 
> framing and solving problems__.
>
> My opinion is that a mailing list is not the best support for this 
> kind of activity (project-related lists, yes, not 
> "education-revolution" ones). But then, I may be the only one who is 
> interested in realizing some concrete projects rather than discuss a 
> lot about things that could be done (but will never get done because 
> most educators on a full-time teaching time don't have time to realize 
> them alone).
>
> (4)
> What's the best way to support our community and help it grow? With a 
> wiki like mine, with posts that refer to other papers and other links, 
> with links to free cliparts and images on the web, with information 
> about instructional theories, we increase the chances for educators to 
> come across the wiki by chance, to have them wonder what that 
> "revolution" is all about... Maybe they will give it a try. The more 
> persons in the community, the more we will be in a position of 
> benefitting from tutorials and stacks written by others.
>
> I am curious to hear what other persons on the list think about 
> that... what is it that they expect to get from this list, given that 
> a "use-revolution" list already exists (when the list was started, 2 
> years ago, it "died" after 3 days).
>
> Marielle
>
> PS. I just designed a stack that converts from html to wiki syntax 
> (used it to convert the pages about wiki-webs in teaching)... it will 
> be made available in the stacks archive very soon. It is written in 
> such a way that you can easily use it to make any number of systematic 
> replacements in any text.
>
>
>> I must admit that I find the 'objection to mail list traffic' most
>> baffling but perhaps generic to the edu population.
>>
>> While finishing a recent M.S. in instructional design & technology, I
>> noticed that one or more of my colleagues were troubled by the 
>> "volume" of
>> email that transpired.
>>
>> I find this baffling because I am myself on the following 
>> lists/groups:
>>
>> Hypercard
>> use-rev
>> edu-rev
>> newtontal
>> use-stagecraft (or whatever it is called now)k
>> unofficial OSX
>> chaucer-list
>> LMB (later medieval britain)
>> Katherine Swynford Yahoo group
>>
>> I also regularly follow:
>>
>> sgm (soc.genealogy.medieval)
>> rec.heraldry
>>
>> and there's probably a few low-traffic ones that I'm not recalling at 
>> the
>> moment.
>>
>> So, I don't understand why edu folks don't like mail traffic, 
>> especially
>> on a topic in which they are presumably interested.
>>
>> What am I not understanding?? (mind you, I'm an educator myself...).
>>
>> Judy
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 10 May 2005, Marielle Lange wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Also, note that I have stopped fetching the posts from the 
>>> revolution-
>>> education list... but I have added on this forum a post that ask
>>> whether the gname option fits the bill for educators or whether you
>>> prefer to minimize the signal to noise ratio as much as possible
>>> (i.e., only register for the forums on issues that you are personally
>>> interested in). Feel free to comment on that past (on the wiki, click
>>> "Forums" in the menu, then click on "education-revolution", add your
>>> comments to the top post of the list "end of the demonstration").
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> education-revolution mailing list
>> education-revolution at lists.runrev.com
>> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/education-revolution
>>
>>
> learn their mutual needs and negotiate to produce something meaningful 
> for everyone.
>
> Marielle Lange (PhD),  Psycholinguistics, Lecturer in Psychology and 
> Informatics
> University of Edinburgh, UK
>
> Homepage:  http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/mlange/
> Lexicall project: http://lexicall.org
> Revolution-education project: http://revolution.lexicall.org
>
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