Forum v WhatsApp

All my OU modules have had an associated forum.  Students are encouraged to participate and the forum is moderated by one (or more) members of staff.  I've had varying experiences of different forums and found that their success largely depends on how they are moderated.  On my most recent module I also joined a student WhatsApp group.

The forum

Membership of the forum was automatic and participation was encouraged.  It was also the place to get advice and input from the moderator (one of the tutors) and as a result the conversation was very much focussed on the module content and not chatty.  As a university led initiative core information was provided for all students (eg name!) and you could also access other information if shared (eg link to their study history, blog etc).  Not having subscribed I engaged with the forum when I was logged onto the OU site and was studying.

The WhatsApp group

The group was self selecting and was badged as an informal chat group for students studying the module.  Sounds good I thought - a chance to get to know some of my fellow students informally.  What I hadn't realised is that I would end up with (what felt like) a random collection of phone numbers and no easy way of associating the number with a person - and many people don't sign their message.  However, the volume on the WhatsApp group was definitely greater than the forum and many people indicated that they found the chat with fellow students very supportive and had made really good friends through this medium. This never really resonated for me as receiving a 'well done' or other supportive message from an anonymous phone number didn't 'float my boat' or make me feel in any way connected to the person or the comment. 

And boy did people chat - my phone was switched off for a couple of days and I came back to several hundred messages - the forum never generated that volume of interest!  But many students asked 'how to' questions on WhatsApp first rather than on the forum (and often got directed to the forum where the question had already been asked/ answered).

So much of my experience and involvement was driven by the way the technology works.  Neither WhatsApp or the forum are good at managing threads so finding previous conversations of interest was difficult on both mediums.  And neither have a way of acknowledging a comment with out posting so in both cases I ended up with long streams of messages saying eg 'well done'.  

Will I join a WhatsApp group for my next module?  Probably not - I'm not sure the chat really added value to my study and, for me, didn't work as a mechanism to connect to people.