Community in the Online Classroom

I think building a sense of community in an online classroom is challenging, particularly in an asynchronous classroom. Still, community is critical to the online learning experience. I think there has to be some sort of "getting to know you" bonding activity at the beginning of an online class so people can get introduced to each other and get some sense of personalities. One advantage of online learners, from my experience, is that they are very committed land very reliable in terms of making a contribution to the class. This helps the community bond. I think discussions are valuable but can get tedious and create an overwhelming amount of reading, particularly in an asynchronous environment. The best online community building experience is working on a project, with a specific deliverable, together.

I think that the same elements that create community in an online environment hurt the community when they are missing. Without group project, discussions and "getting to know you" activities make it difficult to feel connected to others. I also think fostering too great a sense of competition can undermine the online community. Lastly, the same dynamics that can undermine community in a face-to-face community can undermine an online community. For example, people who don't participate when they're supposed to, people who take over discussions, or try to force people into agreeing with them. In my group discussion, I cited a synchronous online class I took in screenwriting, where all the other writers knew each other, and the teacher. It was very alienating. They had a tight knit community...but I was not a member.

David Noble and the Commonditization of Content

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I was very interested in David Noble's comments about the commoditization of content in online learning, because I see a lot of that in my corporate work. It seems to me that everywhere, it's getting harder and harder for the actual creator of intellectual property to get any credit, let alone any profit, from their work. When you go to work for a company as a writer, whether full time or contract, the agreement is that the COMPANY you're working for, not you, owns the final product. That wouldn't be so bad, if you got some credit as creator, or a bonus, or some incentive or reward for your work. I have not found that to be true. You're suppoosed to work as many hours as it takes to get the job done, but in the end the company owns your work.


It is the creator who makes a course unique, but institutions are eager to create products that appeal to a mass market.The commoditization I've seen in my work has a deep impact on quality. First of all, bandwidth limitations mean that most instructional designers have to design to a lowest commonw denomiator to begin with. To make mass development easy, all courses are written to the same instructional design. On top of that, content has to appeal to a mass audience so it is developed as "generic". But generic doesn't really work, because it doesn't speak to the real experience of employees, so that means content must be easily modifiable. Because of this, FLASH can't be used throughout the learning experience, which lowers the quality of the experience from a design perspective. The result it mediocrity all around. The corpporate market is saturated with incredibly mediocre content, that kind of, sort of, but doesn't really, result in effective learning (at least in the ethics arena).

That being said, I think there is greater hope for the educational marketplace because the buyer is also the learner, whearas in the corporate environment the buyer is the corporation. As such,the priority low cost and learning experience often takes a back seat. But the deeper, and more disturbing implications are around the marriage of corporate and university interests. This creates an enormous potential for learnning content, particularly higher education content, to be yet another marketing opportunity for a variety of special interests.

The idea that a corporation could put their logo on a university course, when the content is not being produced for the employees of that company, shows the tip of a disturbing iceburg. Think about Hollywood and product placement, video news releases being distributed and treated as "real" news,the degree to which commentary is being sold to news audiences as journalism. Everywhere the line between factual and promotional content is blurring. If this kind of blurring starts to take place in the university learning environment, where will we be able to go for information and learning free of hype?

It seems to me that as universities create "for profit" subsidiaries that learners, instructors and instructional designers have a lot of work to do to ensure that corporate interests don't dictate the quality or the message of online learning at universities -- that learners and instructors do.

Sorry, not a natural blonde.

My friend, Cindy, had a party celebrating the marriage of Charles and Camilla. I went at "Miss Piggy, Duchess of Pork."

(Ok, I can hear you saying "She's got WAY too much time on her hands...")

Greetings! Now the answers you've been waiting for...

What made you want to take this course?

I have a lot of experience in creating linear, self paced e-learning but don't have much experience with the tools and format for teaching online.

I'm also a fan of Brenda (having taken a couple of courses with her) and was eager to take her course!


What are 3 things that anyone who knows you knows about you?

1. I have a warped sense of humor.

2. I'd rather be writing for Letterman.

3. My favorite way to relax is at the beach with a margarita in one hand, and a good book in the other.