Why haven't I done virtual peer review?

Virtual Peer Review is an intriguing book, particularly since it has made me question why I have always resorted to in-person classroom peer review in the past. I'd like to say that virtual peer review never occurred to me, but that wouldn't be quite accurate. I had considered it before, the implications, the difficulty of implementation, etc., but never seriously.

I appreciate Breuch's explanation that peer review has a history of "strong foundation in oral communication," that from its introduction into composition studies, teachers have assumed an integral role that orality has in the process of making meaning. Although I have used peer review in the classroom well before I knew its history, I appreciate this reason as one which kept me away from virtual peer review: peer review has simply seemed to me like a live, classroom thing to do.

I also take up with other reasons, though, that may have prevented me from using virtual peer review, so....

How haven't I used virtual peer review? Let me count the ways...

• Limitations of online document exchange/response: We live in an age in which this sort of thing is easier than ever, yet there are still inefficiencies that make classroom peer review easier to implement. I am currently running a paperless classroom and yet at times I am frustrated at how unreliable or inefficient the technology can be. Blackboard, with its singular uploading and downloading and frequent confirmation pages, it too slow. I use Google Docs now, but even that has lapses and shutdowns and students continue to have access and use issues. Email at Ball State, of course, is impractical because of the troglodytic inbox size. As it is, I prefer Google Docs for my classes but accept things through both Blackboard and email because one technology doesn't seem to function correctly for all students. This itself is inefficient, but I am committed to a paperless classroom.
• Emphasis in the classroom space: Even has we are dismantling a top-down, teacher-centered education, the classroom is considered the default where the most substantial learning occurs. This is an assumption for both the teacher and the student. Therefore students "get" things when it is emphasized in the classroom in a way that they don't when it is conveyed outside the classroom. This semester, I chose not to go over my attendance policy in as much detail as I had in the past. The result is that the attendance of my students is worse than it has been in the past, even though students read the syllabus on their own. What is emphasized in the classroom is regarded as necessarily important in a way that stuff emphasized online is not. If I want to stress peer review and writing process as quintessentially important, could it be that I need to do this in the classroom?
• Writing focused time: Assigning peer review days reserves time for my class in which students' focus is entirely on writing, rather than writing as well as reading and daily assignments and group work and other projects. If I move peer review out of the classroom, I will fill that classroom time up with something else. But will that in effect distract students from their writing?
• Concern over the "essential" role of the instructor: There's a sense which much of the important, classical composition classroom activities that the instructor's presence is necessary in order for things to go "right."
• Monitoring vs. overmonitoring: Certainly, we all monitor what is going on in classroom peer review sessions, but this sort of monitoring is informal, unrecorded, and fluid. One difficult with online activities, including peer review, is that virtually everything is recorded. This has its advantage of course but one thing that recorded information implies is there is an onlooker, a teacher reviewing the information. This can put pressure on the instructor if students are counting on that supervision or it can put pressure on the students, who may be wary of that monitoring presence.
  

I could probably include additional reasons. Be that as it may, I can also think at least one other reasons to consider virtual peer review.

• I know I shouldn't be talking all the time but what should I be doing?: I notice that when I conduct peer review in the classroom, it leaves me with little to do. This is in contrast to other group work I conduct, in which I am every present, helping to prepare groups for the task at hand and answering questions. If, from how it looks, my students have it covered and don't need me there to make the peer review process work, shouldn't I move it outside the classroom and use that classroom time for stuff they do need me for.