no-one to play with

[Note: I've posted this in our wiki as well.]

When comparing blogs with discussion boards (or pseudo discussion boards such as this wiki) we will need to comment on the value of a discussion board in the absence of any third party interaction. It is all well and good to seed a board with posts which you had hoped would inspire discussion amongst your peers, however if no-one responds it loses much of its value... the interaction. You could of course repeatedly post in response to your own thread, but then... hah... there will be overlap with a blog.

Blogs, by comparison, only require the input of the blogger. So if no-one reads them, or responds to them it still retains its intrinsic worth in the form of a place in cyberspace in which you can reflect. An exception might be if your blog entries were written with the express intention that they be read by viewers - then lack of response may be de-motivating for the blogger. If the blog is private (i.e. not released for general view) then this might be regarded as the purest form of interaction... interaction with the self, and interaction with the changing self through time (and the self's subsequently changing perspectives) - untainted by comment or contribution.

I suppose a solo discussion (i.e. one into which only one person posts) can be regarded as a form of blog? Likewise a public blog to which enthusiastic use has been made of the 'comments' facility could be regarded as a form of discussion? I cited an example of the latter in an earlier post: here. Ownership of the 'solo discussion' resides with the solo-discussion-poster. However ownership of the public blog does not reside with the contributors making entries in the Comments field. So it follows that by using the 'correct' technology to blog or to discuss you will have greater control over your content. [Note: blog comments cannot be edited]

Q: What do you think A-M? Does one regard a discussion post which has not been responded to as impotent? Can it have value in the learning context?

A: In answer to my own question I would say that it does have value. The formulating of a question (or a discussion topic) could be regarded as a way of cognitively organising the subject matter... a way of trying to make sense of it. By constructing questions you can determine where the gaps in your knowledge or understanding are. I acknowledge though that questions (and discussion topics too) are frequently posed not to obtain an answer but for other reasons e.g. to make a point, or to impress the reader [see: here and The Written World]. A discussion topic which is a genuine can-you-tell-me-the-answer-to-this might get a couple of responses, and then it would sink. But the more thought-provoking types of questions might be ideal for discussion topics as they inspire (often lengthy) exchanges of contemplation and debate. However in the absence of contributions from third parties these types of questions could be 'answered' by the thread author... in the form of a protracted sequence of reasoning. So yes, these too would have value.