Asynchronous Frustration

Being a student again is...weird.  I have to participate in discussions, which is really really hard.  Normally when I am in school, I do the reading, go to class, and am relatively quiet.  It’s not that I don’t participate or prepare, it’s just that I’ve just never been one of those students who always has to be at the centre of every week’s discussion.  If I have something to add that isn’t just reiterating everyone else I will add it, otherwise I am probably going to pretty much stay quiet.  I don’t really like discussions where everyone just says the same things over and over.  I think that’s why this whole online discussion thing is so damn hard; I, and everyone else is my class, types out our discussion contributions before sending them off into the void of the internet to wait until someone deigns to read and respond.  It feels as though everyone is screaming their opinions at everyone else without listening to most of what is being said.  When I read the “responses” to posts I’ve made most of the time they aren’t really responding to what I’m saying, and when they do respond there is little more than “I agree!”.  That’s not to say I’m not totally guiltless in this, part of our grade is based on contributing to discussions so I’ve been just as guilty as everyone else of posting not to further discussion but to just get something out there for the week.  And then of course there is the fact it’s all asynchronous, nothing flows because it could be hours or days between the initial post and the response.  I’m trying to get used to it, and I try to make sure I respond (really respond, not just saying “I agree!” or hitting “reply” and saying something that has nothing to do with the post to which I am ostensibly replying) to at least one post a week, but sometimes it is just too hard to add to the noise knowing that whatever I say is just going to be drowned out by everyone else trying to make sure they meet the participation requirement.  It’s a frustrating system, metaphorically screaming my opinions into the silence and hoping to get an answer from someone in the void, but at least if my best ideas about the reading come to me in the middle of the night I don’t have to try and remember them until the next time the class meets!