I will start of by saying that I started off the Soliya experience without any former experience in online communication based platforms. I understood that Soliya was a part of my course; however, when we started signing in for our accounts and desired meeting times, it was all new to me. I remember that our course instructor told us before you started the sessions, that this year might be a suitable year for us to do activities like Soliya because of the corona virus and the online direction that all institutions had taken. This was one of the reasons that made me more interested as I thought that the online group will have something in common to talk about. I feared entering the session because I really didn’t know how the flow of the topics was going to be and whether there would be misunderstandings between the cultures or silent pauses because we don’t really know each other before we start the sessions. Throughout the journey, I was surprised by a lot of things not only about Soliya but also about online communication.
One of the things that I find really unique in Soliya is the fact that you are clueless of who are you going to communicate with and the idea of a facilitator. The idea of randomly generating groups from different parts of the world with no restriction, allowed my group to be diverse which meets the goal of Soliya. As I mentioned earlier the corona virus allowed me and my group to have a huge common part of our lives which made the topics a lot richer. Linking that with how the group was diverse, the group allowed me to understand the situation of a common global issue from very different perspectives and also how different countries deal with it differently. As for the idea of assigning the groups a facilitator, I find it really successful because it allows the conversation to meet with many important aspects like: allowing everyone to talk, prevent silent pauses, help us generate ideas, gives us topics to talk about and guide us through the process. Moreover, the facilitator doesn’t only allow the conversation to run smoothly but he tries to not impose his ideas on the topics we discuss which is the key difference between a facilitator and an instructor.
The experience also allowed me to reflect on myself in terms how I use a platform like Soilya and how do I engage in the digital world. At the beginning when I joined the site, I was surprised by the strength of the community. I was always familiar or even close to communities formed in the digital world because they have a certain common interest, but I have never entered a community that does the opposite ( people enter the community for the sake of communication which then allows them to find common interests). If I allowed myself to think about how I consume social media, I would find out that I always communicate to my close friend group but rarely communicate with my other friends that I don’t have anything in common with them anymore. I believe that the idea of common interest is one of the main aspects of creating a “safe zone in communication” and it is always hard to break free from this safe zone. So this is something that affect my engagement in the digital world and I guess platforms like Soliya, helps you break free from your safe zones.
The idea of online communication was becoming more clear to me when I attended two online conference (related to my course) and started comparing them to Soliya. The first conference I attended was composed of a number of instructors that brought there students into a conversation discussing “The wellbeing during Covid 19”. Even though the group was larger than Soliya’s, there were many times where I felt really included. I think this is due to the fact that the instructors are familiar with each other and this allowed them to be more free and to crack jokes in the discussion. This made me realize that the mood of the online communication need to be more free and less controlled which is something that I struggled with when using the mic tool in Soliya. The fact that people couldn’t freely have spontaneous responses but rather wait for their turn, made the conversation sometimes feel systematic. However, regarding the idea of familiarity in Soliya, the second session was a lot more natural because we were familiar with each other and it was a lot more interesting and engaging than the first one and made the conversations more rich. As for the second conference that I attended, it was composed of a group with a large larger number of individuals but it was more of an informative conference where instructors share their thoughts on the idea of “caring for students”. Even though, the number of the group didn’t allow verbal communication, the use of other tools like: group chat and annotations was making the conference a lot more inclusive. In my Soilya sessions, we used the group chat a lot when we wanted to comment on a topic that someone was discussing verbally. This allowed us to have a more natural flow in the conversations. Another element that we used in Soliya which made the sessions more inclusive, is the breakout rooms that allowed the presence of more intimacy in the topic discussions.
I have always believed that we as humans appreciate the face-to-face interactions more than online communication; however, I have realized over the years and after these sessions, that the online communication can help support this face-to-face interactions when we direct it towards a positive direction like: cross-cultural understanding, creating communities, building up social skills, overcoming social anxiety. However, This positive direction must be supported by the right tools, innovative ideas and individual engagement. What I mean by tool is to include technical tools the ensure inclusiveness in the discussion like: the breakout rooms, chat boxes and annotation. As for the innovative ideas, there is always rooms to make things better and I think these ideas should come from people that are using the platform. This why I think the continuous feedback that Soliya offers is very successful. Lastly, I think the people are the ones who actually control the successfulness of the conversation. I got really lucky with my group as I felt that we all are generally looking forward to learn from the other; however, I know that some of my colleagues, in other groups, didn’t really enjoy the experience because of their groups. I think that when it comes stimulating excitement in people, awareness of the direction of the online communication is needed. Also creating a user friendly site and tools that make sure to balance between not overwhelming the user and allow them to be excited to start their online journey.
