The subject of building community has been recurring theme for me over the past few weeks. It has been discussed in my on-line facilitation training at work and in my practitioner profile with Lisa O’Reilly. Lisa is an instructional designer perusing a doctorate in education at the University of Colorado at Denver specializing in elearning. In my discussion with Lisa offered a definition of community as "interactions and relationships". I could not agree more, but how do you go about designing for them?
Two important design considerations for building community, participation and social presence. Participation presents a daunting challenge for self organizing on-line communities. 1% of users account for almost all the action while 9% contribute a little and 90% are passive participants sometimes called "lurkers". In elearning, most participation is mandatory, but this will not insure a sense of community. Structured discussion topics and limiting discussion groups to 5 to 6 participants starts to build interactions that are the foundations for community. Lisa has an interesting take on participation by viewing it through the lens of marketing. She believes that designers should think of provocative topics that will draw participants into discussions or selecting topics that the participants can feel that they can contribute to in a meaningful way in order to increase participation.
Social Presence is a fascinating aspect of on line learning that I have recently been exploring. I learned that this is Lisa's area of study. She describes social presence as, being able to interact with the people around you based on what you know about them. This is a difficult area to excel at on-line, at least for me, and easy to dismiss as unimportant. I was amazed to learn that social presence is important for cognitive and effective learning. Lisa mentioned that there are studies that prove students score higher when the instructor has a high level of social presence within a on-line course. Just a few weeks ago I was telling my wife that one of the things I miss most in my switch from the K-12 to the elearning program is attending class. Social presence is "second nature' in the f2f world but it takes work to make it happen on-line.
I did think of a real on-line community that I "lurked" around in for around six months that possessed interesting solutions to the aspects of participation and social presence. The community sprang from the following of a video blog called The Show of a web designer Ze Frank. It was a year long experiment in social media and community building. Ze attempted to modify participation creating different levels of engagement ranging from voting or rating to full collaboration among users on various projects like an audience-created wiki. As far as social presence, you will have to judge for yourself, but I felt that he was very engaging. I had the feeling I got to know Ze and after six months of following the show I was sad to see it end. I do feel that the blogs that I continuously follow over a long period of time are the bloggers that make you feel as if you know them even if you are just "lurking" along with them.
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Keywords: 5680, community, social presence, UCD
Comments
Collin,
Excellent points to consider. What I find interesting is comparing the work involved in creating an online community for eLearning, yet there are people whose "best friend" is someone they've never seen.
Consider the popularity of dating sites like match.com, eharmony.com, and also the social networking sites like myspace.com and facebook.com. It amazes me how much we can feel like we "know" someone we've never met, in a casual online setting like that.
4 years ago, I joined an online support group to help me deal with some "stuff" I had going on in my life. I lurked for a while, read everyone else's stories, paid attention every day. Then I started to participate more regularly. I met these people online and who knows how many of them were genuinely dealing with the same situation I was, but they all said they were. And the emotions at the time were so vivid and strong that it didn't seem possible someone could "fake it" in an online persona.
2 of my dearest friends came from that online support group; 1 of whom I've still never met face to face.
I just think it's interesting how that works for some situations, but not for others.
Thanks for putting it out there to consider.
Unlike several blogsters in class, I have yet to understand the value of blogging and this type of social networking. A friends daughter was texting her friend while watching a football game with her dad. The dad says to her - why don't you just pick up the phone and call your friend?
Social networking is in its infancy and this will all work itself out I suppose.
I have found it very difficult to "get to know" people in our class. I think this is partly because we are so task oriented all of the time that personalities don't get a chance to really come through. Another reason is more of an issue with me ... I'm a very visual person - I'll never forget the face of someone I have met f2f, but their name is gone the moment it leaves their lips (I'm working on this). For the most part in our eLearning classes all I have is a name and the names get all jumbled in the various posts and so when I really think about it I'm just working with a group of people. Do I know these people? Yes and some more than others, but there is definitely something to be said for seeing the name and having an image of that person pop into your head.
So I guess I would have to disagree with Margi; I don't feel like I really know someone unless I know what they look like. I think this is why I liked Lisa's idea, which you mentioned in your report, of including an image/icon with posts. It would be interesting to test whether the kind of image effects the results studies such as those mentioned by Lisa (i.e. if a photo of a person has the same effect on social presence as other kinds of graphics that are more abstract but still representative of a person in some way).
Question for you Collin:
What do you think of the ice breakers at the beginning of each course? Do you think they're enough to give classmates and instructors a sense of each other?
Question for the class:
Would you ask a instructor that you had met never and only interacted with through on line courses for a reference?
First of all thanks to Margi, Lynne, and Erin for making such thoughtful comments. I admire Margi's ability to take risks and reach out in an on-line environment, it sounds like Margi is one of the 10% of the people who cross the threshold into participation. I have experimented with some social networking looking at My Space but it seemed a little cheezy. I heard about Facebook this summer from a nice who is attending college and then read a Newsweek article Facebook Grows Up and I decided to explore Facebook so I set up an account and I've discovered three communities that are formed around elearning. One of these communitinty's owners works for the BBC in London, so it does offer some unique oppertunity. However I'm not an active member at the present time. I've had this eduspace for almost two years. I've found some interesting people here I've had little interaction, mostly I have just lurked around. Maybe someday I'll get my courage up like Margi did and jump in!
Erin, about your question, I have never taken those "ice breakers" very seriously. I've tried to be one of those task oriented people, but like I mentioned in my post I do miss the social interaction. I know what you are talking about with the faces and names, I suffer from the same problem. Writing does not come easy for me so it take a lot of effort to socialize on-line and since I did not see it as important I did not invest a lot of effort in it. Over the past few weeks the importance of social presence is becomming apperent. I don't know if a greater length of time on ice breakers would be helpful (or well recieved) but I'm glad we have the oppertunity to mingle in this type of forum in this course.
In response to Erin's question, I would be a little hesitant about asking an instructor I had never met for a reference, but I think it would be a valid reference. In an online setting, I feel that the focus is on the work that is produced and not the "package" of the person. With my background in Special Education, I see it as leveling the playing field. An example is that someone with a speech issue or a vision issue in an online setting is "known" for what they think and how they express themselves with their words and their disability can be invisible.
Debra
First of all, really good topic. I really feel the line between online relationships and f2f relationships is quickly being blurred. I have only just recently got involved in a online community and it has been pretty great. I do feel I know the people there on a personal level.
I thnk a very big difference between that and the blogs is this is a posting board with a slick interface. The amount of interaction in that posting site is much greater in the board than the blog. I only have to look at one site in the board.
And as far as asking a professor for a ref- yes I would
Collin,
Maybe people's behavior in online communities isn't really all that different from those in f2f communities. I'm thinking of a couple of professional organizations that I've belonged to for years, serving as an officer in both. There is a small group of individuals who become very involved, a somewhat larger group who show up fairly regularly and get involved to a limited extent and that vast majority who sort of lurk on the sidelines. It sounds like it took Margi a while to become comfortable enough to participate - so perhaps it's more an issue of developing trust that of provacative questions?
Another element, at least for me, involves time commitment. According to CNN, "Workers in the United States are putting in more hours than anyone else in the industrialized world." I'd love to get more involved in a lot of things, but between work, school, family and a couple hours a day commuting, there's just not much left. I think a lot of people are feeling overwhelmed by the barrage of information and opportunities. Just as it takes a lot of energy for an online (or a f2f) instructor to have a social presence, so does it require energy from any participant. Remember McClusky's Theory of Margin? We can only learn if we have sufficient margin to do so after meeting the load requirements of our daily lives.
In response to Erin's question, I would feel very comfortable asking one of my professor's from this program for a reference if it involved my cognitive/intellectual abilities or my web development skills. But to your point, Collin, it would almost certainly be one of the instructors who has maintained a high social presence!!
Collin:
Social presence is not a topic that I would have conciously thought about, but, now that you bring it up, is quite interesting. I, too, have been involved in a different grad program and have had the experience of sitting in class with my peers. However, while I may not see their faces, I feel like I know more about my peers in this program than I did about those in my MBA program.
However, as the definition of social presence so aptly describes, I think this is due to the effort / decision I have made to interact with them. It is the result of deliberate action in this particular environment--one I view as safe--and, perhaps, a weird personality quirk.
Reading further through your post, I found the point about "lurkers" to be quite relevant, especially when it comes to blogs. Blogs don't seem as safe and, perhaps, that is a contributing factor to individuals preferring to be lurkers rather than participants. Social presence is something that we certainly need to consider when designing future online learning / communication environments.
Thanks again for bringing up this valuable point.
On-line communities seem like a hard one for me to grasp. Being a newbie to this elearning environment. I think the younger generation kids in their 30's and younger might feel more comfortablem with the on-line learning environment. After all they have grown up with the social networking. My daughter, who was jsut diagnosed with MS would rather join and on-line support group than go to a people,mface to face meeting. I would want the complete opposite.
It is important to have these converstaions about on-line learning. Since this is my first on-line class,(and not even a true one) community or lack of is a big one for me.
Interesting ...
It sounds like I'm the only one who has issues with asking a person I've never met for a reference; which became a problem for me this summer when I was searching for a new job. I went back to my undergraduate days for references. I guess it kinda depends on the job you're applying for. In the museum education field, you have to ACTUALLY BE outgoing and personable. These are qualities I don't think you can determine completely from on line environments. It's true that professors in the ILT courses could give reference on technical skills and some what on work ethic, but when someone is judging your ability to work with people you need so much more information.
-erin
Very interesting comments. Within this program, I have always had a sense of community. I do not have much experience with other social networking communities outside of this program. I suppose this is because I have never really had a "need" to investigate them further. My peers do not get involved with them, so I don't participate in them. And as Kirsten mentioned, I just don't have the time to use them.
I also think that our online instructors would be more than adequate professional references. I think there is a great deal they can tell about our personalities, as well as our technical skills, from our online interactions. In my opinion, our instructors can evaluate:
My guess is that they may have difficulty evaluating whether we are introverted or extraverted. However, your other references could easily address any personality traits that may not be addressed from online instructors.
I think the concept of lurking is an interesting one. Lurking is essentially what being on the web is all about; you are able anonymously explore the world without people recognizing you or judging your interests.
I wonder what factors are most important for enticing people to make that jump from lurker to participant on a blog or website?....and how do these factors influence the time it takes for one to make the jump. It would be an interesting study of human tendencies.