Blurring boundaries with computer-mediated communication: Academic-personal palimpsest as a means of new knowledge production

The authors survey the landscape of CMC and education by relating it to increasingly popular hybrid course structures. This chapter maps findings associated with academic learning and subjective knowledge in a graduate course assignment: the "electronic palimpsest". This became a vehicle for the exploration of embodiment, identity, and virtual learning. Within the electronic palimpsest these themes were sustained, complicated, and evaluated from multiple standpoints, as demonstrated through content analysis of postings. Ultimately, this case study contributes to and supports the belief that case-specific accounts of alternative CMC projects are highly valuable in providing future directions for the requisite evolution of technologies associated with hybrid learning. The electronic palimpsest challenges typical assumptions of learning communities, as well as assessments and outcomes of learning in virtual environments. This study promotes possibilities for different pedagogical approaches to the question: what is the relationship between knowledge production and the development of learning communities?