Problems in Creating Online Communities
Students are in a "coerced" situation--hard to create community in a
class that is graded.
In a non-graded course, whether for students or teachers, there may be lack of interest, time, priority,
etc., so it has to be very motivating.
Students, especially, want to write just to you--not to the list
How do you meld newbies and experts into a working community?
Flaming
Time zone differences
Fear of making mistakes
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Solutions in Creating Online Communities
MOTIVATE MOTIVATE MOTIVATE
Have a purpose, a target audience
For examples, see: REO, Academic
Writing, and Webheads
Get to know each other -- intros, welcomes, photos
See for example the interactive
member map for the Webheads and
their
Introductions page
Have a place to meet synchronously as well as an
asynchronous list or BB
See, for example, Tapped In, Yahoo!Messenger, LearningTimes, etc.
Mentoring and tutoring
Get the experts engaged in helping the newbies
Think of yourself as a mentor, rather than the sage on the stage
Never let a question go unanswered:
Repeat, relate, research, point to
Ask the "experts" to help in answering
Have someone cover the group when you are away
Unflagging courtesy -- there are no dumb questions
or dumb
actions!
Create a no-flame zone (see Netiquette).
Thank people for contributions and effort
Archive the community --
Keep a record of resources, create Web pages with chat
logs (add photos),
make summaries of discussions on a regular basis
Use group features that demand responses
polls
database
Plan projects together --
With students:
Discuss with them the need for
independent learning and the reasons for group learning--get them to
help plan the events and projects
With teachers:
Run mini-courses over a specific period of time to
induct new members (see Learning with Computers)
With students or teachers:
Online and land
presentations,
voice and video chats
As in land classes, group-based projects, research, and study are very motivating
Have F.U.N. (Frivolous Unplanned Nonsense) --
For example, create a drawing space with Groupboard where students can draw collaboratively.
Also see Sus's April Fool's Webpage
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