A Discussion Tool to Foster Collaborative Learning: H2O's Rotisserie Structured Discussion Tool

April 16, 2003

John Palfrey, Executive Director
Hal Roberts, H2O Project Leader
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
Harvard Law School

On Wednesday, April 16, Hal Roberts and John Palfrey, from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, presented their version of democracy on the Internet to TIE students and faculty. John, executive director of the center and former Harvard Law School student, described the project as the opportunity to create a free exchange of ideas, pointing to the competitive, front-row students from his law school classes as a vivid reason why such a tool was needed. During these classes the ideas and opinions of the more dominant speakers were generally given an unequal amount of airtime, stifling the diversity of thought.

Their innovation, entitled H2O, is a rotisserie, online discussion tool that not only provides a solution to this undemocratic exchange of classroom ideas but also addresses some of the more common problems found in traditional asynchronous and synchronous discussion threads. Many of these problems, which include infrequent participation, low quality postings, and endless -- at times, off-topic -- discussion threads, can be minimized by a good facilitator. H2O, however, makes the job a little easier.

Here's how it works:
The online discussion is broken into separate rounds. In the first round the project manager (often the professor) will send a question to all the users (usually students) via email and directing them to go to the website with their response. The user will then have a set amount of time to answer the question after which his or her response is spun into the second round. In this round the user will receive someone else's response to the original question in his or her mailbox. He or she will, again, respond to this mailing by the stated due date and time, and the cycle continues with the next round or until the project manager decides to end it. This kind of quasi-synchronous online discussion gives all users the same amount of time to post their comments, assures that all posts will be read by at least one other user, and generally results in more thoughtful, higher quality responses. But more importantly, after the rounds are over, all of the comments and responses are posted in a public forum, creating a diverse, equal representation of ideas from all of the students.

To John, Hal, and the rest of the H2O team, however, increasing the democratic exchange of ideas in the classroom is only a small part of their vision. Their hope is that, by placing the tool online and making it accessible to the public, they will create a community of individuals with diverse ideas that extend beyond classroom walls. A law professor from Harvard, for instance, could conceivably set up an online debate for his class and invite law students from Oxford University to join in. Of course, public users can set up similar discussion forums on the website, and they can also view other ongoing discussion forums. As an extra bonus to all users, the source code for the entire H2O site can be downloaded online (for free). If they want, users can build their own rotisserie-style discussion forum.

To John, Hal, and the rest of the H2O team, however, increasing the democratic exchange of ideas in the classroom is only a small part of their vision. Their hope is that, by placing the tool online and making it accessible to the public, they will create a community of individuals with diverse ideas that extend beyond classroom walls. A law professor from Harvard, for instance, could conceivably set up an online debate for his class and invite law students from Oxford University to join in. Of course, public users can set up similar discussion forums on the website, and they can also view other ongoing discussion forums. As an extra bonus to all users, the source code for the entire H2O site can be downloaded online (for free). If they want, users can build their own rotisserie-style discussion forum.

It's this selfless, community spirit that leads me to believe the best is yet to come for H2O and that we'll hear more about rotisserie discussions in the near future.

For more information about H2O and their vision visit h20project.law.harvard.edu; to join one of their online discussions go to h2o.law.harvard.edu/index.jsp; and to download the free source code visit h2oproject.law.harvard.edu/rotisserie.html. You can also read Hal Roberts' blog account of this seminar.

-- James Truong (TIE '03)