moodle breach
For the norm-breaching experiment, I decided to go with Only One Medium. In this experiment, I was going to use only one popular communication medium for 3 days, and note reactions. I did not follow the rule of ‘popular’ communication medium, because how else do you breach a norm without using something that no one uses but everyone has access to in this college. So…
The Experiment
So, if you go to Juniata College, you are aware of the system we use to share and organize classes online — it is Moodle. For the most part, it works pretty well. Professors can upload assignments with due dates, and students can submit files without the hassle of emailing their professors. There are quite a few helpful features such a reminders when assignments are due, quizzes you can take online, and you can also check your grades (which I am always afraid of doing).
However, a little known feature of Moodle is the chat functionality. Yes — you can send messages to other users of Moodle — and it is terrible. For that reason, no ones uses it. Absolutely no one that I know uses Moodle chat. So, of course I decided to make it my primary communication tool with all my friends (and a few professors) for a day. I figured it would be too impractical for me to use this for 3 straight days.
Method
Now, to start with the experiment, I decided to start with less important messages that I can send to my friends. This is because I was not sure if people would even be notified about these messages in the first place.
Example messages:
To Jack Test: do you wanna play frisbee today at 5?
To Grace Kochanek: can we do a walmart run sometime this weekend? i need milk for my chips ahoy
To Daniel Muleady: where’s the beef?
The second step was a little more risky, I sent messages to my professors. These weren’t important or urgent messages — just to be on the safe side.
Full disclosure, I continued using email for practical reasons.
Example messages:
To Jared LaGroue: do you think we’ll need the 50 mm for friday? I can borrow it from the kit and bring it to set.
To Li Shen: Thank you for the feedback session today. It was really helpful.
And finally, I began texting my coworkers and classmates on Moodle, responding to the questions they would have on other messaging platforms like iMessage and Slack.
Example messages:
To Anonymous: Please collect the posters from Ellis hall, front table.
To Anonymous: Could you please complete the introduction of Lucky Charms case study #2 by tonight?
Results
I was not surprised to see that most people did not even check their messages — it seems. None of my friends responded, and when I asked them in person (with a straight face of course), they weren’t even aware of the messaging capabilities of Moodle.
Surprisingly, some of my professors responded back in a timely fashion. None of them asked me why I sent them a text on Moodle, but I’m sure they were confused.
And finally, my coworkers and classmates that I responded to in Moodle were slightly annoyed at me (but had a laugh after I told them about the experiment I was conducting).
Discussion
No one uses Moodle chat. When we examine the practical uses of this functionality — there are a few. For example, if one needs to get in touch with a classmate for class activities, group projects etc., they can use the chat functionality to talk about sharing contact details. However, the fact that majority of the student body is not even aware of this functionality is what sets the norm.
Moreover, what defines norms is what is considered norm-al in a social situation — online or not. The most common example of this is what is the normal communication tool used to communicate between a given social group. That sets the norm — an unwritten rule of using which platform is normal.
Moodle chat, in my opinion is a good feature to have. However with the current norms, using it is not normal.
