2.0 learning

FOC08 (1): Groups to Communities.

I leave you today a summary of the First Unity of the Course Facilitation and online communities: The course is held in English but I thought that some Spanish readers could be interested of some of its findings. I´ll publish an Spanish version of each unit.

This is a summary exercise with some personal contributions, based on my community online moderation or participation experiences. You can see the theoretical sources at the end of the article.

I have also created a twine about “online communities of practice” in which i´ll add the recommended lectures and other bookmarks and interesting contents generated from this course. You´re invited to participate.

There are frequently on the social web discussions about the terminology defiinición and the roles of networks, groups or communities (see the reference to Downes). I think that they are just in a continuus line or a flood of personal involvement. I don´t believe an agreed definition could be possible, so I leave you my own:

Networks: the very concept of network is straightforward, without too many implications. Network are, simply, an opportunity to establish (six degrees, the theory of 6 degrees) connections, superficial ties with others. It will always remain as an aprioristic requirement for any of the following two.

Groups: There are some theories that attache the concept of group to the assuming roles by participants.

I understand groups, better, however, like  the mere presence of more than one individual in a physical place or, in this case, online environment. The term should be distinguished from “team”, with established roles and directly designed to the achievement of objectives.

The formation of groups from all network connections that can be set casual, led by interests or directed by hierarchies (if the goal is learning or information-Communities of practice or CoPs) or actors (if the objective is the promotion of products). Group features include dynamism, change, freedom of choice or leave it easily.  Because communities involve an important, if we are talking about human beings, element: affectiveness.

Ted Rheingold talks about that in his presentation: The State, Future of Passion & Business-Centric Online Communities. Communities could be important instruments to boost people´s passions, operationalize it and make it productive.

There are also emotional at extreme the three facilitators cited by Clay Shirky:

- Sex, relationships among members.

- Identifying and negativization of external enemies (Bion)

- Similarity Deification (basis of religion, also Bion).

But will be the driving characteristics of groups to turn them into communities?

Based on detailed specifications by Sylvia Currie, a member of my community in FOC08, listing 10 facilitation skills, attributed to Leigh Blackall we´re going to provide some ideas about bonds facilitation (stimulate, moderate , rewarding passion) that converts a group in online community:

1 – Communication skills (offline) and new technologies expertice: Facilitators must dominate NNTT as well as the typical facilitators of groups offline skills.Driving groups is a skill that requires some subtlety: “When the work of a good leader ends, all say ‘We did it ourselves” (Lao-Tse, 400BC)

2 – Content, quality environment. Collect data is the first step towards knowledge. Sharing is the first step towards the community (Henry Gates).. Thus, the facilitator will provide not only a theoretical initital framework but the instrumental tools to share information on the subject area. When we´re creating online discussion groups, blogs planets with participants or establishing a common label for FOC08 contents, we are going beyond a learning environment or PLE creation. We´re working towards community (see next item)

3 Promote, create, community “culture”, to establish identification elements among its members: . Providing ways to access small pieces of information (messages, chat logs, events, etc.…, blogrings) is a good thing to do.

Balance is, at this point, fundamental. Leigh´s work consists on establishing common references but also respecting the needs and trends of the entire community to “be herself”. Communities are bornt to be active, to fullfil the need to build, to create, from skratch, something new.

4 – Presence, moderator facilitators:

Leigh is always there, connected, available for any consultation or occurrence “as soon as possible. This is a temporary need that could be eased when community is established. The facilitator can leave the community once the responsibilities of the course have been adopted by its members.

Communities, when established, are self-sufficient.

Using a friendly tone, positive, assertive and simple when interacting is a good question for facilitating too.

5-Expertise:

Although when we talk about education 2.0 I like to refer to the horizontal communication or lack of leadership roles or directionality of learning from expert to novice and considering that the issue is more important if we talk about communities offline (Face to Face, F2F) knowledge of the “leader” should be at least equal to those of the participants.

6 - Strengthening participation, including:

Giving an opportunity to talk to everybody, both during the meetings online and on orientation towards creating a space for itself in which each participant can communicate with the rest.

Being sure that the technological environment, which for many but not all may be familiar, does not make anyone feel “disconnected” is one of the requirements of communities developing.

Seeing participation as something not essential but evolutionary, susceptible of change along with the group going towards the community. To understand and be understood on that is essential for facilitating CoPs.

Let’s see a little more about this:

Sheryl Nussmaum-beach write about different degrees of involvement in the community, modelled on the 4LS, (Linking, Lurking, Learning, Leading… link, see, learn, lead), model, inspired by comments from John Seeley Brown ( social learning). Derek Wenmoth model, based on the model role of Lee on ways to participate online about blogs is more accurated to my experience. In this case, participants evolve through a series of phases, gaining progressively trust and understanding:

Consumers – Participants (or Lurkers), simply read and explore  others posts. Beyond being passive considered, consumers can be really very active participants in an online community, but still not as visible as others.

Those who comment in blogs or discussion forums, often seeking clarification, showing agreements or offering suggestions or links to similar things.

Those who contribute – we would be talking about UGC or user-generated content. They are already trained and have the necessary confidence to express theirselves and their own ideas.

There is a general rule:  the easier it is to join a conversation, more visitors will become people who contributes. Communities that allow anonymous interventions tend to generate greater interest, although they may have to filter the relevance of some of the initial inputs.

Community instigator (is annother of the synonyms used for moderator) should act as if all were leaders in terms of potential relevance of their contributions. There will be participating candidates to lead the plot content but also others who, though not at the time as “experts” on matters like the others, they may be are at this time encouraging the formation of an emotional link on the entire community or even acting as mediators to the conflicts that may arise.

Reinforcing towards intrinsic motivation (not based on karma or other extrinsic factors) will be crucial for the community facilitation.

7. Openness, communication with the outside world, diversity: In a knowledge society, moreover, interdisciplinary, identifying and enhancing areas of expertise expression of the diversity of everyone, help learning and mutual enrichment.

Feelings of belonging to the community are enhanced if everyone is free to bring the best of himself to the community. Horizontal communcation, horizontal hierarquies are related items.

A good example is the recent Mozilla initiative,  seeking input from all (designers, apart from developers) to their development or crowdsourced translationsions of many environments and social networks into other languages, are on that line.

Web Sources:

• Groups and Networks video of Stephen Downes 2006. You will need a broadband connection speed to view this video, and I suggest you open the link, press play and then press pause for 10 minutes or so as to let the video load ahead some. Same technique for dial up, but wait much longer on pause.
• Communities of Practice: Learning as a Social System by Etienne Wenger 1998
• Building Online Communities – The Internet exists to improve communication. Communities can grow anywhere communication occurs.
• 1% Rule – Wikipedia, June 2008
• Clay Shirky’s A group is its own worst enemy
• Susan Herring’s Gender and power in online communication
• The Art of Building Virtual Communities by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach 2007
• ResearchSpace at The University of Auckland: Interaction between existing social networks and information and communication technology (ICT) tools: As a conclusion, it is suggested any ICT intervention in a developing country requires at least three elements to be effective: a tolerable physical infrastructure, a strong degree of social texture and an activator of information.
• Glossary of online interaction CC By NC SA Nancy White 2008
• Web Worker Daily: Building Online Community Brick by Virtual Brick – Since I first got online in 1987, I’ve been using the Internet (or at that time, Bulletin Board Systems) for not only communications but for community building – for my own projects and for clients.

© 2008 The Shell.