Working out new modes of communication+ work

Had an interesting experience today using Skype. Had a conference call with six other people. Two were on text-only; two had audio in but not audio back out (no mic); two others were at a shared in/out (one machine handling whole connection). It was a weird situation. Basically, 1-2 people could TALK back to me...the rest could talk back via text. How to keep the communication flowing? I ended up narrating a lot, filling in holes, creating structure.... All very strange.

It made me think of the peripatetic school, teaching while wandering. They worked out that the wandering supported their philosophizing. (Or maybe Aristotle just liked to walk...) We are coming at it the other way: we're given the tool (mixed-mode text and voice chat) and we have to work out how it supports our process. It's not intuitive, but you don't get anywhere unless you start moving....

I also thought back to experiences where an instructor had us enter a chat room...too many voices, too little structure. We were given the tool but had no idea how to use it.

The whole SITEmentor experience is about finding out how to communicate and work through these tools. I'm glad to be working it out on a smaller scale. I am thinking the social connections made in the smaller group will help bring out more authentic interaction in the larger groupings.