Though it's far from clear that much significant learning is going on in the droves of online classes that have sprung up over the past few years, there's certainly been a great deal of research on them taking place. Just why it is that I haven't added my two cents into that "great deal" yet is a cause of much debate, and as time continues to pass, of concern as well.
What I'm presently interested in examining is how pupils use online asynchronous discussion forums: whether these forums help them to organize their thoughts, whether they see them as a means for sharing information with others, whether they refer to them beyond being assigned to do so by their teachers. You get the idea.
Numerous difficulties present themselves when I try to work on this project. One of them, of course, is finding, or taking, the time. But another is the fact that the use of these forums presupposes not only a degree of computer literacy, but also a rather high degree of linguistic competence, and even abstract thinking. Sadly, it seems that the pupils in the course under study have a lot to learn before I can learn much from them on their use of the forums.