Principles for productive text communication

Carl asked for a list, so I’ve tried to make a list

• Conversation as a constructive and explorative practice.
• Metaphors as imperfect, temporary, explanatory frameworks
• Slow syncretic moves towards broad consensus, not a sprint towards personal understanding

And that’s why I don’t write bullet points. I need an entire lesson to pull apart the language I use to describe good langauge.

So what does that look like in practice? I’m going to pull some examples from various sources and see if I can identify what I mean by those fuzzy high-falutin’ terms.

This is an exchange, the weekend before a semester exam, with a g11 student concerned about a specific subsection of Topic 3 Networking.

Student: hello sorry to bother you but I wanted to know the network securities we learned so I can review the pro and con of each. we learned encryption, user IP, white/black list, MAC, Firewall (packet switiching), and thats pretty much all right…?

Teacher: Yeah. we talked about all of those in class today except firewalls. Can you give a definition of firewalls)

Student: umm okay its a way that computers block some packets and requests from entering

Teacher: ?

Student: I’ll try re wording it… So a firewall is a security system that protects and controls traffic or requests and it protects against unauthorized things. so when a request comes they check if its not suspicious….?

Teacher: Yes! Suspicious is a nice word, but really the firewall is checking traffic against some defined rules.

Student: got it! its still a type of network security right?

Teacher: 10:35 PM yeah. Firewalls are normally descibed as Network Security Appliances or Devices. They are another computer that sits between the LAN and the wider internet.

I left the last timestamp in there because that’s a low-key important part of this. I see my students at particular hours of the day. Those don’t always correspond with the hours those students are most intellectually engaged or productive. Especially for IBCS, where I expect that a successful student will need to spend something like 150 hours on the course material (code and theory) outside of class, I need to have SOME channel to those students while they’re actually DOING the work. The primary function of constructive feedback is to help a learner identify where they are, label problems, correct misconceptions and take positive new action.

That cycle can’t take 48 hours! If a student is frustrated, if they’re stuck, they need help RIGHT AWAY.

SO my desire to have students improve their “discuss and ask for help in text” is partly so that they’ll feel ready/capable/comfortable of asking ME for help when they’re stuck at 10:30pm.
It’s also so that when they don’t reach out to their actual teacher, then they have the skills to reach out and ask the other human (or now LLM) parts of the internet and get GOOD support.

What else about this exchange meets my criteria? Student is willing and able to express and re-express their understanding, and then respond to questions about that work-in-progress definition. That, along with the material sent in the video link and my bit about the CIA office structure, shows the metaphors as imperfect, temporary, explanatory frameworks aspect of discussion.

Sigh. This is where I realize I’m going to need to include some platonic dialogue in the fall reading, just to prepare kids for this kind of discussion.