Connections: Virtual Learning Communities: Chpts 1 & 2

Connections: Virtual Learning Communities 

Chapter 1: 

Community?

• “Technological tools have made the world smaller while expanding the idea of community.” (The Connected Educator, p. 55)

Is this the authors attempt to expand or refine the idea of “community,” simular to FaceBook's use of “Friends?”    But then are they really Friends?  Is it really a community?

• “Communities are collections of people who are bound together for some reason, and that reason defines the boundary of the community.” (p.17)

Great contrast to the optimistic “The Connected Educator.”  There is a “gritty” nature to digital interactions.  There is also that the reality that online digital learning communities can be “deep and shallow.”  I would suppose however that these communities, harmful or not, would not exist if people did not populate them.  This reality has created a crucial need in knowing what are the key characteristics of "healthy" communities.  “Healthy,” .......there’s another term for the melange that is the digital lexicon. 

The issue lies in the fact that a “common language” is only salient to those who use it in the applicable context.  Take LOL for instance.  I thought, in my early time, that on Facebook it meant “Lots-of-Love.”  I would be really confused when LOL tags showed up when I wrote something humorous........Lots of Love? 

“Learn, UnLearn, ReLearn” 

I get concerned about such a specific language that lives in a digital context and then our overwhelming reliance in our ability to contextualize the nuance.  I am responsible for the content area of Music Education the content area of the Visual Arts Education and my movement towards a doctorate in education.  I get contextualized nuance.  

“Learn, UnLearn, ReLearn”

Chapter 2: Common Features of Online Learning Communities

Great chapter at explaining the many facets to “Virtual Communities.”  As most of his information is not data based, I do believe in his intuitive observations.

Schweir’s makes a couple of distinctions and clarifications that I embrace.  The concepts of “Formal” and “Informal” communities.  He also states that these “Have Life Cycles.”  The fact that a “formal” community such as a course will just end.  Which he refers to as “rude, even callous.”  So my question about “formal communities” is, “Unless designed into a course how does one as a participant receive closure?” and “What does it look like?

He then endins with this ominous but apparent truth,  "Learn to adapt or prepare to die." (p. 47)