After all our classes shifted to fully remote through the spring semester, I got a chance to read the seminal paper “Re-place-ing space: the roles of place and space in collaborative systems.” by Harrison, Steve, and Paul Dourish. The paper discusses the advantages of “place” over “space” and how it supports Computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) design.
Authors described space as a structure of the world in which any objects or events occur whereas a place as a spaces “that are valued”. They pointed out “Space as an opportunity and place as understood reality” which gave a clear sense about the relationship between a space and a place (Harrison, Dourish). So, from this one can clearly understand that the places exist with spaces because the place is a space with something added. They also argued that the social and cultural behaviors are associated with the place but not with space. The article concluded that in our day to day life the place plays a vital role in an individual’s than space. A great example in the article which made me clear about space and place was “A community hall might, on different evenings in a week, be used as a rock venue, a sports arena, and a place of worship. On these different occasions, it’s not the structure of the space which frames people’s behavior, but the place where they find themselves” (Harrison, Dourish).
As we are in a difficult situation of pandemic and it is relevant to think of “place” and “space”. As the authors pointed out if anything changes in the space then it changes into a new place So, this new situation has changed a lot of individual’s place even though it was the same place before. And that’s why it would be difficult for most individuals to shift to fully remote instructions in a very short time.
Remote learning is a great way to conduct classes but because of very few prior experiences, I prefer face-to-face classes over remote classes. I think that we as a student tend to pay more attention and engage more in in-class activities to make the learning more practical in face-to-face classes. I noticed that my friends are not following up with the pace in remote mode as the video lectures and attendance becomes optional, which made them skip online session or videos. Also, I feel like interaction (social interaction between teachers and students as well as students and students) was missing in remote learning.
Lastly, I find a face to face classes more effective from the learning point of view as well as a teaching point of view. So, remote learning can’t be successful for all individuals and can’t be practical for all classes.
Harrison, Steve, and Paul Dourish. “Re-place-ing space: the roles of place and space in collaborative systems.” Proceedings of the 1996 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work. 1996.
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