Workshopping is the name given to sharing one’s efforts, and commenting on those of others, in a writing workshop. I’ve noticed that some writing classes in London have simply been cancelled. Fortunately, one I was taking was moved online. I’m booked onto another writing course in June, and if things haven’t returned to some sort of normality by then, I will be urging them to move that one online too.

From my limited experience of workshopping online, plus my experience of other online classes, plus thinking about how I will teach a course if an adult education institute I work for asks me to, here are my thoughts.

What works well, and how it could be even better

Interestingly, people don’t seem unduly fazed by having to voice their opinion in a video chat as opposed to one in a physical space. However, two issues have presented themselves.

The first is an obvious one, which is that individual participants don’t have access to technical support, at least not in the context of a course. If something goes awry in a classroom, support is only a phone call away. However, when things started to go wrong for a couple of people (one person’s microphone wouldn’t work, another person couldn’t get their webcam to work), the consequence was a bit of disruption to the rest of the class.

I do think that tutors can forestall a few likely problems by sending out a kind of crib sheet in advance. However, I’m afraid that for the sake of the greater good, tutors should be prepared to say “I’m sorry you are having issues, but please mute your microphone so as not to disrupt the class.”

One workaround is, of course, to use the chat or comments facility. That’s what I encouraged someone to do, and that worked quite well. However, it does require them to realise that there is such a facility. I’ve had instances where I’ve tried to communicate with someone in the chat, but they simply haven’t noticed.

Another point to note is this. In one workshop session, I had written notes about other participants’ writing on their actually pieces. Fortunately, I had also annotated the pdf versions. I say “fortunately” because when it came to my turn to say what I thought, the rustling of paper proved to be very unpleasant for the others — so I very quickly turned to the pdf versions I had sent to my Kindle.

Obviously, not everyone in a class will have a Kindle, but presumably they all have a computer. So I think if I run a writing course online I will ask the people on it to either read from their digital copies, or mute their microphone while shuffling papers.

Unlike in a physical setting, it’s not so easy to pick up on body language. When you’re in a room, you can usually tell when it’s your turn to speak, because the person speaking looks at you, or slightly nods in your direction. In an online room, people will tend to try and speak at the same time. The tutor either needs to choose who goes first (without forgetting that the other person wanted to say something as well), or ask people to put their hands up, so to speak, in the chat/messaging area.

Enhancing the experience

While it’s impossible to exactly re-create the classroom experience online, we should recognise that working online is a different kind of experience. That being the case, it offers different, and exciting, possibilities.

For example, the experience of small group discussion can be enjoyed by sharing a Google doc with students. While each person is commenting, the others can see what they’ve written and respond. This isn’t as spontaneous, perhaps, as a discussion in class, but it does have the advantage of providing an opportunity for everyone to contribute, a history of who said what and when, and a completely accurate record of the points made.

If the class session can be recorded, then participants can watch the bits they missed later. This is very important if you are in a workshop, and the tutor decides to go ahead with a discussion of a person’s work even if they had to give their apologies for having to miss “their” session.

The online classroom will also provide tools like automatically-marked tests/quizzes, embedded videos, timed assignments and a repository of all the handouts and slides provided.

Conclusion

I think the online version of writing classes and workshops are going to be with us for some time to come. Tutors, especially, but also students, should do their utmost to make full use of all the facilities that online tools afford.

There are also articles reflecting on the online learning experience on my other blog.