R695 Building  Online Communities
	Summer II 2004 Tue. 9:00 to 12:005

… community has become an obligatory appendage to every educational innovation. Yet aside from linguistic kinship, it is not clear what features, if any, are shared across terms. This confusion is most pronounced in the ubiquitous ‘virtual community,’ where, by paying a fee or typing a password, anyone who visits a web site automatically becomes a “member” of the community…Groups of people become community, or so it would seem, by the flourish of a  researcher’s pen. (Grossman, Wineburg, & Woolworth, 2000, p. 2, italics in original)

While many of us are concerned with the loss of communal spaces and ties that broaden one’s sense of self beyond the “me” or “I” and into the “we” and “us” (Putnam, 1995), less clear are the educational advantages of a community approach in terms of learning curricular content. We know even less about whether something resembling community can be designed, and how to measure whether it has emerged. This is glaringly apparent in terms of virtual communities where designers are employing usability strategies to develop innovative designs that are usable, but have not adequately taken into account issues of sociability—that is, how does the design make links to and support people’s social interactions, focusing on issues of trust, time, value, collaboration, and gatekeeping (Preece, 2000).  Regardless, there is a virtual explosion of efforts to create online learning environments to supplement or replace traditional modes and even institutions of learning—of which this book proposal is but one example.

Developing an online forum is not very difficult.  Almost any “off the shelf” LISTERV or web-based conferencing system can provide an adequate underlying technology.  However, attracting a group of people to the forum who will form a community is a considerable accomplishment. It is common for many people to visit and leave without posting messages, for many others to stay and only read public messages (lurking). Further, when on-line discussions are unmoderated, some debates can be transformed into hostile ‘flame wars” that all too easily spiral out of control.  Nonetheless, there are many examples of  sustained civil on-line groups. Some of them have important communal dimensions.

As more and more of these on-line communities are being designed we must ask in increasingly sophisticated form whether they are succeeding and what exactly they are accomplishing.  This course will examine what we do and do not know about the processes and practices of designing communities to support learning. Some of the central questions to be addressed through this course include: What constitutes community? How do these electronic environments relate to more familiar place-based pedagogical ones?  How well do the techniques and constructs that are used to understand the processes of learning and enculturation in traditional face-to-face  community settings suffice for these new settings? What is the educational value of a community approach to learning? How do we capture and what are the relations among individual, group, and community trajectories?

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Course Requirements

1) Examplar Online Commmunity Search (10 %): Before we start our own work, we first need to understand what else has been done in terms of building online communities. This includes both literature about as well as an examination of actual online community spaces. Toward this end, you are expected to search the Internet, ERIC, or other resources to find exemplars (and non-exemplars) of online spaces to support community. Specifically, you will be expected to find at least three online models and/or research projects that can serve as exemplars of online communities of practice. You (and if you chose to work with a partner) are expected to write up a handout that includes brief summaries of at least two of these projects and that highlights some of the lessons that might be informative to the design of our community prototypes. Secondly, a central goal of this search is to produce a useful description, explanation, or set of criteria on what constitutes community.  Come to the third class prepared to address the following questions: What is community? What are some examples of online communities? You should come to the second class with your work documented on a piece of paper. You will be expected to share your findings of both the exemplar projects and your community definitions with your classmates.

2) Article Summaries/Presentations (2 x 15 %, 12 x .5 %): Each student will be required to present in-class on 2 manuscripts from the list of readings. The total presentation should not exceed 20 minutes and should include: a brief summary/characterization of the article, what you liked about the article, what did you not like about the article, an analytical frame for the class that faciliates discussion about the core ideas, and some questions the spur rich dialogue in relation to the core ideas. You should have around 5-10 minutes of presentation and atleast 10 minutes of discussion. Performance will be assessed on these criteria as well as the ability to answer questions and facilitate in-class discussion on the topic. Additionally, I will send out some reflective questions based on each presentation and you can write a brief (1 paragraph) reaction to 12 of these.

3) Socratic Hour Participation (10 % & 15 %): We will have two Socratic Hours, one on the second Wednesday and the second on the last Wednesday with the last one being online. The idea in these discussions is that I will come prepared with a list of questions related to the readings up to that point. I will then go around the room selecting different individuals to receive specific questions. Students will be expected to respond to questions related to any of the readings.

4) You can choose from either one of the two assignments below:
a) Research Plan/Report (15 %): Each student, individually or in pairs, will be expected to develop a research plan (this is simply an extended example of what a plan looks like), including a brief literature review, research goals, data collection techniques, and analysis methods. Grading will be based on the soundness of the research plan/outcome (including issues of credibility and trustworthiness), the quality of the writing, and its connection to the theoretical framework of communities of practice (CoPs). You will also be expected to review one other plan.
b) Paper Collaboration Contribution (15%): Collectively, we will write a paper that advances a particular set of criteria with respect to potential features to identify in examining a community of practice. Each student will be expected to choose and write evaluation criteria (maybe 3-4 items that can be scored using a Likert-type format) and a brief literature review (2-3 paragraphs) on one of the 8 proposed features: (1) shared knowledge, values, and beliefs; (2) overlapping histories among members; (3) mutual interdependence; (4) mechanisms for reproduction, (5) a common practice and/or mutual enterprise; (6) opportunities for interactions and participation; (7) meaningful relationships; and (8) respect for diverse perspectives and minority views. Lastly, you should use the proposed rubric criteria to rate Knowledge Forum, Inquiry Learning Forum, Tapped In, and Math Forum, giving each a rating and a one-or-two sentence justification of why that rating is appropriate.

5) Personal Community Experience (10 %): Each student will be expected to participate in an online community during the course and mantain a journal during that time. You must log in and participate in online participant structures at least once every other day, but preferably daily. You should try to participate in as many activities as possible and keep your journal to include both what actually happened and your reflective take on the experience. At the end, you are expected to hand in a 1-3 page essay reflecting on your experience. In addition to characterizing community life, you should develop an opinon on whether you believe this is an example of something like community.

** Extra Credit(5 % Extra Credit): For this assignment you are to chose a different community then the one above, write and overview of that community and share your reflections on it. Your 1-3 page paper should characterize the 4 elements of community life as well as your assessment on whether this is online community: ecology, cosmology, development cycle, social organization. Ecology pertains to the context in which the community resides, and how the community interacts with this context. Social organization is concerned with how the community structures itself to carry out its practices and maintain its identity, as well as those of its members. Developmental cycle refers to how the community continually (re)configures itself, and the process through which newcomers become knowledgeably skillful with respect to the practices which prompt them to become central members of the group. Cosmology is the community’s system of beliefs, knowledge, and skills, including what is valued. Through an examination of the interrelations among these four domains, the ethnographer contributes her perspective of the culture of the community under study (Geertz, 1976; Marcus, 1998).

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Texts:

 Required:
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Barab, S. A., Kling, R., & Gray, J. (2004). (Eds.). Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Recommended:
Smith, M. A., & Kollock, P. (1999). (Eds.) Communities in cyberspace. New York, NY: Routledge.
Jones, J. (1998). Doing internet research : Critical issues and methods for examining the net. Newbury Park, CA: Sage University Press.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Articles:
    Barab, S. A., & Duffy, T. (2000). From practice fields to communities of practice. In D. Jonassen, & S. M. Land. (Eds.). Theoretical foundations of learning environments (pp. 25-56). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
    Brown, A., Ash, D., Rutherford, M., Nakagawa, K., Gordon, A. & Campione, J. (1994). Distributed expertise in the classroom. In M. D. Cohen, & L. S. Sproull (Eds.) Organizational Learning (pp. 188-228). London, England: SAGE Publications.
    Brown, J.S., Collins, A, & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning, Educational Researcher, Jan-Feb, 32-42.
    Cook, S. & Brown, J.S. (1999). Bridging epistemologies: The generative dance between organizational knowledge and organizational knowing. Organizational Science, 10(4), 381-400.
    Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1994). Computer support for knowledge-building communities. The Journal of The Learning Sciences, 3, 265-283.
    Sfard, A. (1998). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Educational Researcher, 27, 4-13.

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Weekly Topic Outline

Week	Date	Notes	Readings	Daily Activity	Topics
1	June. 1 (tue)	Barab, Squire & Dueber Pres	Barab, Squire, Dueber Barab, MaKinster, Sheckler	Introductions Review Syllabus  Read Tree Story Barab Presentations	What is community?  What are some examples of online communities? http://ilf.crlt.indiana.edu
1	2	Barab, Mak, Scheck Pres Philosophy Piece Rodrigo Pres, Barab & Duffy Dodge Pres on Lave	Lave & Wenger 1-3 Barab & Duffy	Chapter Presentations	What is community?  What is online?
1	3	Scott Pres on Riel Mark Graphic	Lave & Wenger 4-5 Riel & Polin Scardamalia & Bereiter		Coming to Terms
1	4	Jay Pres on Kling Mark Community Article	Schlager & Fusco Kling & Courtright	Exemplar Community Search (from here out)	Designing for Community
2	7 (mon)	Dodge Audio Readings	Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989 Schwen & Hara	CTGV - Jasper	Designing for Community Schwen Guest
2	8	Link to Games Warren on Squire	Starwars Galaxies Steinkuehler Bruckman	Quest Atlantis	MMPORG
2	9	Questions		SOCRATIC HOUR
2	10	Craig on Derry	Derry et al. Cook & Brown or Sfard
2	11		Renninger & Shumar Brown et al. 1994	Research Plan Draft	Fostering Community Participation
3	14 (mon)	Dodge on Herring 1 Dodge on Herring 2	Herring Hewitt		Characterizing Community Life
3	15		Sluder & Barab Koku & Wellman		Characterizing Community Life
3	16	Barab Pres	Gray & Tatar	Research Plan	Characterizing Community Life
3	17			SOCRATIC HOUR Personal Community Experience

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Expectations

1. Everyone will do the readings consistently.
2. Everyone will contribute to in-class discussions.
3. Seminar format means we are all teachers as well as students.
4. You will have fun exploring these ideas!