Views From the Gulch

 The e-community I participated in for this assignment is the 2008 Networks Community .  It focuses on flexible and e-learning issues for vocational education and training (VET) practitioners and others interested in this field.  The Community was initially established in 2005 with paid facilitators, funded under the Flexible Learning Framework.  It had over 600 members, many of whom were active participants.  Since February 2008, and the expiration of funding, it has been in operation with volunteer facilitators.  Membership of the community is required to access the full resources of the site, however the application process is simple and new members are encouraged.The Network has monthly forums where members can discuss topics, raise issues and ask questions; wikis for collaboration on various topics; a resource sharing site and a blogroll.  There are links to news, information and other sites.  An online chat session has recently been introduced.  The community is based on open source Moodle system software and is hosted on the Education Network Australia (edna) site.

In a member survey in February topics were identified for further exploration.  These are forming the basis for monthly forums, with key questions posed by the facilitators to commence information sharing.  There were a number of contributions to the February and March forums.  While some of the discussions were interesting to a new practitioner in the e-learning field, they quickly became quite technical. 

Unfortunately throughout April the number of posts to the forum questions has been negligible. I posted a query in response to the forum topic and, while being welcomed and encouraged by the facilitators, did not have a response from other members after one week.  An online chat forum conducted during April did not seem to attract any interest - or if it did I cannot find a record of the session on the site.

Perusal of the Network’s archives for the previous three years revealed a large amount of activity with a significant number of members contributing.  This consisted of discussion forums, synchronous sessions (with transcripts), exploration of a variety of tools and links to resources.  Information was available for both new and experienced e-learning practitioners.

In the archives was also a “Time Out Forum” “for members WHO ARE INVITED to take time out from the Main Community …to reflect on your inappropriate postings and the effect they have on other community members.”  Members invited to this area were also requested to read the group’s Code of Conduct.  This forum contained posts by a small number of members.  Further exploration of the archives revealed an incident that resulted in “time out” for one member, and a series of discussions between two members which often become quite heated, resulted in a number of inappropriate postings and “hijacking” of forum topics.  Given the apparent experience level of the posters I was surprised that they had allowed their discourse to reach this level.  The interchanges resulted in one of the parties officially withdrawing from the Network, and the other not appearing to make any further postings.  A number of other members, disillusioned by the ongoing behaviour in the forums, also announced their departure from the community.  This may go some way to explaining the paucity of posts in 2008.

In terms of my learnings from participating in the 2008 Network Community I have had a mixed result.  The facilitators have seeded the forums and there have been contributions from a small number of members.  However, one member has begun to dominate discussions with, to me, rather tangential postings.  While the facilitators and this member may know each other well their dialogue appears to be pushing the bounds of netiquette.  Due to the paucity of postings I have not observed the cross-industry collaboration and information sharing that I had anticipated. 

My participation in the community has provided me with some clear ideas regarding an approach to structuring a similar community.  I will now attempt to explore some of these learnings in terms of a social constructivist framework.

Social constructivists view learning as an active process which results in mental construction of new ideas, skills and behaviours as learners make meaning of the world surrounding them.  The emphasis is on the construction of knowledge, rather than merely it’s acquisition.  Dialogue within a community of learners allows participants to “test their constructed views on others and negotiate their ideas” (Stacey, 2002)  which “provide(s) meaning and organisation to experiences and allow(s) the individual to ‘go beyond the information given’” (Hanley, 2007). 

Bandura’s Social Cognitive Learning Theory is based upon constructivist principles.  The theory looks at how people learn from observing others’ activities or social interactions and abstracting the rules/concepts underlying them.  They then process and evaluate this information, make decisions on it and thereby make meaning from the world around them (Cornford, 1999).  The theory can be applied to any learning situation - not just the formal learning environment. 

Analysing the 2008 Network Community in terms of Bandura’s theory I found that it largely meets the requirements to provide an effective learning experience for participants: 

• The community attempted to present a variety of information on e-learning via discussion forums, information on activities and links to resources and other relevant sites
• The material was presented in a variety of forms including forums; links to relevant resources; and opportunities to develop wikis and participate in online synchronous chats. Initially material appeared relevant to all participants, but soon became quite advanced and complex. Posts were infrequent and there were no contributions to some forum topics
• Discussion forum topics were ordered in a logical progression with clear guiding questions to commence exploring the topic and develop meaning from it. There was no evidence of the use of a mix of verbal and visual images to aid in retention, with no videos or graphics used
• The discussion forums provided the opportunity for participants to explore their understandings and receive feedback. The limited amount of interaction made this difficult to analyse. The posts of one member were complex and did seem to take the discussion on tangents - they did not really create dialogue on the topic
• The participant survey in February 2008 was a good way to ensure the relevance of the community and thus motivate members to be involved. This approach has previously been found to stimulate discussion and meaningful learning in learning situations (Jonassen, Prevish, Christy and Stavrulaki, 1999, in Stacey, 2002). However, the lack of contributions shows that for this community this was not a very effective strategy
• In terms of the internal motivation of members I feel that the nature of a number of the posts may have contributed to the apparent lack of interest in the community, or at least to the lack of posts. I found the tangential nature of the posts and the sometimes disrespectful tone of the posts contributed to my unwillingness to contribute.

Other social constructivists have identified additional areas that are important in evaluating an e-community.  Social Comparison Theory holds that “we establish a basis for evaluating our own learning and performance by comparing ourselves to others who are learning with us” (Gold, 1997 in Saunders, 1999, pg 38).  Thus the lack of appropriate models to compare oneself with will impact on a person’s motivation to participate.  I certainly found this to be a factor in my own motivation with this community - as discussions became increasingly complex I felt that I was not in a position to contribute or explore my opinions in this forum.

While the structure/format of the 2008 Network Community was largely appropriate in terms of social constructivist principles, there was little evidence that “learners treasured the opportunity to share information and thoughts ” (Ng, 2001, p 531 in Sheard, Ramakrishnan & Miller, 2003).  They had joined because of interest in the community’s area of practice and the topics being explored were suggested by members therefore you would expect participation.  From my observations I believe it may be issues around motivation that has contributed to lack of contribution.  The comments I found in the archive about people withdrawing from the community due to the inappropriate postings may have contributed to the current low level of contributions.  One strategy that may have addressed this originally is to ensure that “netiquette” is more strongly enforced with members.  This could be as simple as ensuring that all new members are issued with a link to the Code of Conduct for the community and facilitators modelling appropriate behaviours. 

With the lack of input by members this community no longer meets either the definition of a network or a community of practice as outlined in assignment 1.1 .  As McDermott (2001) stated, participation in communities of practice is informal - people participate as time, interests and energy allows.  Over time participation will change as people’s needs change.  The fact that there were only 16 responses to the member survey this year and the limited number of responses to the forums may indicate that participants needs and motivation have changed.  Despite having a structure which would facilitate learning the required interaction is no longer occurring.  Perhaps the community has reached the end of its lifecycle and it is time for this community to end.  

References

Cornford, I.R. (1999).  ‘Social Learning’, in James Athanasou (ed.),  Adult Educational Psychology, Sydney Social Press, Katoomba.

Hanley, M. 20 December 2007, Constructivism Pt.1, elearning curves, viewed 19 April 2008, <http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2007/12/constructivism-pt1.html>

McDermott, R. (2001). Knowing in Community: 10 Critical Success Factors in Building Communities of Practice, Community Intelligence Labs, viewed 25 March 2008, http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/knowing.shtml

Saunders, S. (1999). ‘Social Psychology of Adult Learning”, in James Athanasou (ed.),  Adult Educational Psychology, Sydney Social Press, Katoomba.

Sheard, J.; Ramakrishnan, S. & Miller, J. (2003).  ‘Modelling learner and educator interactions in an electronic learning community’, Australian Journal of Educational Technology, vol.19, no.2, viewed 17 April 2008, http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet19/sheard.html

Stacey, E. (2002). Learning links online: Establishing constructivist and collaborative learning environments, Australian Journal of Educational Technology, vol.19, no.2, viewed 17 April 2008, <http://www.ascilite.org.au/aset-archives/confs/2002/stacey.html>