Week 1 Communities

What is a community (How is it defined)? What is a virtual /online community? What bring people together and what motivate them to stay together as members of a community? Cite examples from the recent issues of the Time magazine and/or from your personal experience with a real or virtual community you belong to and discuss the concept of a community.


A community can be defined many ways, it can be defined as a group of people who hold something in common, who share a common sense of identify, they share concerns, resources, quality of life, help and so forth. A virtual/online community is also defined as a group of people who have something in common, but without the constraints of the physical, they do not need a defined physical space, such as a city or town. Virtual communities may be considered more flexible, individuals can make their own, or join their own personal communities. I believe what motivates people to stay together as members of a community is the fact that they have a need being meet. It may be a need for shelter, or a need for education. Online it may just be a need for entertainment or companionship. An example that I have recently been involved in is the community of on-line learning. I feel that I have come to know many of my fellow students, even though I have not had a face to face meeting with them. While I was reading on-line bio's the other night, my husband commented that, " In a real class you don't know that much about each other."


How are the real community and the virtual community similar and different at the same time? How do the emerging technologies, specifically the Internet, “alter our sense of boundaries, participation, and identity” of a community (p. 14, Shummar & Renniger)? For some of you who took my EIPT 5533 course last semester, you should be familiar with Pea’s article to answer this question: “Does the virtual community augment people’s thinking, reform their thinking, or do the both? Why?

Real communities and virtual communities are similar in the fact that a need is being met, and people have things in common. In a real community people are joined together, because of where they live or what they do. I am part of the soccer mom community, because I have children that play sports and I am there to support them. During each sport I will become a member of that sport, it may have a diff rent set of people or the same people depending on which child is playing what sport. Whereas in a virtual community I choose where to belong, because of one of my interest, whether it be on-line education or something like my-space or face book. The virtual comm unties differ in the fact that I can stay in Durant and still have a teacher from Ohio, I do not have to be in close physical contact. I do think that the main differences between virtual and real is the boundaries and the possibility of false identities. It is really easy to pretend you are someone you are not if the people in the virtual communities don't know who you are. We warn our children over and over again not to trust strangers in real life, but we must also worry that the person on the other end of the my-space or the WOW is really the person they say they are. I think that people do feel more free to type or write something than to say it. I think that can be good and times and bad at others. I have known of teens to get kicked off the cheer leading squad due to what they wrote in my-space.

From your own experience or other people’s experience of an online community, do you think people learn and construct knowledge by participating in the community? If so, what are the implications of a virtual community for learning and change?

My own experience of an online community is rather limited. I base my knowledge of online communities from that of on-line educational opportunities from a college that I could not physically attend due to distance problems. So I do think people are able to learn and construct knowledge by participation in an online community. I feel very fortunate to be able to complete my masters program online and feel that on-line educational opportunities will only continue to get better.