Collin’s blog got me thinking about blogs, social presence, community and learning. Can you build a learning community with blogs? I went to the article that Christine Thornam directed me to and which happens also to have been authored by our instructor, Brent Wilson. It is titled Bounded Community: Designing and Facilitating Learning Communities in Formal Courses. Here is “A draft of a quick-and-dirty instrument for assessing levels of community within courses” from the article:
- Shared Goals
- Students in this class are focused on certain goals we have in common.
- Projects and activities give us a sense of working together for something worthwhile.
- Safe and Supportive Conditions
- People feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and ideas.
- I wouldn’t take too many risks in this class; not a safe environment.
- Collective Identity
- We enjoy a sense of connection.
- There is really a feeling of belonging in this class.
- Collaboration
- We interact and work together a lot in this class.
- There’s not much student-to-student contact in this class.
- Respectful Inclusion
- Differences between people are respected.
- Not much effort it made to help everyone fit in.
- Progressive Discourse toward Knowledge Building
- Our questions and discussions help us build knowledge together.
- I know why I’m working on projects-to learn better!
- Mutual Appropriation
- We teach each other a lot in this class, not just relying on the teacher.
- There’s room for everyone in this class.
If I were to evaluate this class and the use of blogs as a tool for building a learning community I would say that many of the above criteria are positively met. I feel we have shared goals, supportive, safe, progressive discourse towards knowledge building and mutual appropriation. In fact, a blog may be the ultimate forum in expressing our thoughts and therefore supporting learning. My only questions would be the criteria that may need a more physical connection to achieve “collective identity” and “collaboration”. In my mind, I am having a hard time making connections because of all of the physical things (open a browser window, click a link, or two links, or more?) I have to do to connect all of our ideas. We know that Mayer states (I’m paraphrasing) that descriptive text must be in close proximity to the image it is describing. Is that the same for connected ideas?
For example, I felt that this blog was very closely related to Collin’s blog titled “What does it take to build on-line communinty?”. Yet, for you to see Collin’s blog, you have to open another window or tab in your browser and then search for the particular entry (if it is no longer the 1st one listed). I think there are some things that bloggers can do to reduce this “physical disconnect”:
- Create lots of links when referring to other blogs, resources, info.
- Have them open in other windows (_blank) if possible
- Display comments next to related entries (I have no idea if this is possible in many blogs. I need to look on this blog! At this time on my blog, you have to click on “comments” to view related comments.)
As I describe these “tips”, I wonder if this tool already exists. Is this a wiki? I would LOVE to hear your thoughts. Am I the only one experiencing this “physical disconnect”?
Michelle
I’ve found it very helpful to use bloglines because I can view all of my feeds at once, as well as link on the individual blogs.
Carolyn
Oh yes! The RSS aggregators should be another tip to reduce the distance and help improve the feeling of community. Thanks Carolyn!
You are right the greater the physical connection that more you will have the sense of community.
I was fortunate to be part of global community that participated together in 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Most of us did not know each other prior to this blogging project. But we all gained by working collectively to complete the tasks. Things that have made us connect better have been shared goals, setting up a community page with images of each community member and some of the bloggers have also included videos on their blog that gives each community member a greater sense of who the individual is.
The more we each connected to each other the greater the sense of community the greater the achievements were through collaboration.
Good use of RSS using a feed reader is essential for managing the community.
Sue
I’m using an aggregator but I’m still trying to get use to using it. With my 4 different email accounts, and everything else I seem to have to keep track of it is overwhelming. I guess it’s like communities you belong to “in the real world” – they take time, commitment and they have to be a priority. How do we make the on-line communities a priority in an already too full life?
Debra
It’s true there is a disconnect between our various blogs, but I have never thought of them having to relate to each other. Now that we have REALLY begun to comment on each others blogs I feel MORE connected to the class. I feel like lots of different conversations are popping up with various topics – some of more interest than others to me. If the blogs were to be connected to each other in topic I don’t think we would be covering as much ground as we are as a class. However, let me state that your tips are good ones for any blog and blogger
Let me also add that I don’t think it should be necessary for us to post to every blog. It seems to me that by nature blogging should allow the blogger to focus on topics of interest to them. However, I do understand the need for some forced commenting just to get the class going. I would hope that at some point we, as a class, will be able to maintain a acceptable (whatever that means) level of communication through our blogs that does not require a grade hanging in the balance.
-erin
You raise some good points about the sense of distance people experience when reading individual posts on a blog. Your efforts to provide a direct link to Collin’s blog, for example, helps me feel not so isolated when I read your post.
I think of Elizabeth Clark as providing rich links of the type you describe. She has lots of hypertext links to the people and resources she talks about.
Another thing I noticed in my own blogging and responding – I put up that little picture of myself on my blog, and I think that makes a difference. I even saw it on a response I put up to another blogger using Blogger.com as their tool – my little black and white pic came up as part of my response. I understand some reasons why you might not want your pic up all over the place. But for me, it helps to see that person’s image while I”m reading what they’re saying.