Week 2 - Topic 2 and 3 - "Asynchronous Online Seminars"

This blog is a merge of topic 2 and 3 and I'm discussing both blogs and forums!
Asynchronous online seminars allow us to express ourselves in different ways. People can post, comment and reply to other posts when they want to instead of having the pressure to respond in ‘meatspace’ seminars. Therefore, as a positive factor, people have more time to construct a response when online. Also, the fact there are tasks on a weekly basis help me get my work done as the seminar prep has to be posted. It is a different and well organised way of learning, the forum and blogs together are a different way of learning because you are on your own, with your own online space but with support from your peers and tutor online. In terms of ‘authority and identity’ I don’t feel there’s as much of a student/tutor difference as in my other modules because the tutors are getting involved more, if that makes sense? You can use the blogs and comment them in your own time, where as the forum to me is a faster online interaction.
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In comparison to real life seminars, the communication in my opinion is very different, and although it has advantages, I think it could have a large impact on they way people do communicate and interact. I wouldn’t want to learn through asynchronous online seminars within all of my modules, I personally think face to face interaction is still very much important. I wouldn’t want to rely too much on the internet because with reference to media literacy, I’m not very good at it. Obviously it would take getting used to, but I think the flow of a face to face conversation sometimes is more beneficial in solving problems etc. Moreover, speech and writing isn’t as much as a necessity, because the forum and blogs do not have academic writing styles, which is something I think I need to keep practising because I think I could easily stop using is all seminars were asynchronous. The blogs and forums I think construct a number of different online conversations in which you have to keep checking and be alert on else you can lose track of what’s going on between your peers. Forums i think have more of a similarity to face to face conversations because in the real world conversation is more staggered in comparison to those in the blogs. Highlighted overall is a difference between online and face to face interactions. It can be furthered by Livingstone saying "...marks the greatest disjunction in the literacy requirements of old and new media.” (Lecture 2)