Communities. What does it take to build?
Build a community and will they come? Or will they?
So what is a community? This question sparked great debate as to not only what a community is but how we define a community and do connections lead to communities or does communities lead to connections.
The definition of community really depends on the context in which it is applied.Is it applied to a farming community ? A learning community? A religious community? A cultural community? An online community? The term community will vary under each of these circumstances but one commonalty remains the same for all these groups and that is that each of these communities from around a common goal.
I believe that a common goal is necessary but there also needs to be some sort of social connection or an emotional tie-in to community building. But creating this social element in some types of communities can be tricky.
Creating that social component with an online community can be especially challenging. Many factors need to be thought though. How and will there actually be a social connection built into an online community? Is there really a need to be socially connected in order to belong to a community? If in fact social connections are being made in an online community are there then considerations for a safe space to go.
Creating a sense of community in a distributed learning environment can be a challenge. It may not be for everyone? In the course textbook, Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek (2012) have shown that completion rates for online learners increase when the students have an added social component to the experience. Noncompleters tended to be more task orientated and focused on course content with a diminished capacity towards social interaction (pg.72)
There is defiantly merit to adding a social component when building an online community. Social collaboration whether it’s online or face to face is very important for building an online community of successful learners.
References
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
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