I chose to observe the virtual community Facebook. I don’t frequent many virtual communities so I decided to use one that was familiar to me. On Facebook I play games, I chat with friends, I read posts from a girl I knew in the military and whom I haven’t seen in 8 years, and I post pictures of my children like my daughter at the Wiggles concert last summer.
The purpose of Facebook is to network and socialize. People join and participate on the site according to their own individual goals or agendas. If you’re looking to reconnect with old friends or family it is a great place to do that. If you want to network or share information about events in an informal setting it is great for that as well. I’ve seen invites for high school reunions, pampered chef parties and work parties. As a community it has endless opportunities.
Facebook is built around pages rather than rooms. For instance, my cousin is a middle school teacher in Houston and one of her students was hospitalized this past fall because of the H1N1 flu. This student’s parents set up a Facebook page for him and posted daily updates on his status. His relatives that could not be there daily were able to respond and involved as well as those of us that did not know his family but wanted to support them through that time. It is free to start a page and simple to do.
Facebook is extremely user friendly and continues to grow and make changes based on the needs of its participants. The primary structure of Facebook revolves around the communication and interaction of its members through its instant message network, by e-mails, board posts or chat. There aren’t multi-person chat rooms like you may see in other virtual communities. On Facebook you chat with one person at a time which makes it hard to communicate in instances where more than one voice would be beneficial.
The participants on Facebook set the behavior and expectations for their own portion of the community as a whole. Individuals choose who can see and be involved in their particular pages. By allowing the participant to make these decisions it allows the individual members to set tone and create his or her own user experience. Anything considered inappropriate can be flagged and reported to the Facebook administrators. There are other automatic checks and balances built into the system for monitoring as well. For example, someone who repeatedly sends e-mails in mass will have their account locked and receive a message that inquires about their status and purpose while educating the individual on the nuisance and legalities of sending spam. Just this past month I received a message from Facebook warning me of a certain e-mail that was being sent to members with a computer virus embedded within it. Facebook was able to stop the e-mail from continuing to be sent, alerted users to the danger and shut down the sender’s page. And while I didn’t feel any repercussions of the virus, many of my friends did. This virus was able to send itself out to everyone on their contact lists which then caused the Facebook auto-checker to shut down their accounts as well. An inconvenience to these accounts and Facebook as well, but it prevented the virus from continuing any further. I felt like it was contained quickly and caused very little disruption to my community experience.
The features that sustain and develop the community are those that are made daily to improve the site based off of member recommendations and feedback. For example, each game the members play has its own page where you can go to make suggestions. The owners of that page can then reply or communicate through e-mail with more explanation or comments. When changes occur posts appear on the main wall for everyone to see as a group head’s up.
Facebook remains my first experience in online community interaction. It also remains my favorite experience in online community interaction. I enjoy the games and reading about old friends and family. As long as Facebook continues to grow and respond to the majority demands of its members it will remain stable and continue to grow without becoming stagnant.
The virtual learning community I chose to explore was Tapped In. I chose this site based on my own curiosity from the readings in the book. As it was described, I thought it seemed like it was the perfect site. In my mind I imagined logging on and being befriended instantly by a person who would guide me through a site full of rooms with links and ideals about how to offer education – a page full of legitimate resources.
I requested membership when I first visited Tapped In and was accepted. Instantly a man named Jeff introduced himself and asked to show me around. He already knew I was a nurse and where I was from. He showed me step-by-step how to get started. He created a profile with my picture and minimal information with instructions on how to go back and fill out more at a later time. I was given my own classroom and office all within about 20 minutes of registering. He asked about my expectations and needs and offered suggestions on how to best meet my goals without feeling overwhelmed.
Later, while I was exploring the site on my own I saw a notice that said a tutorial for beginners was getting ready to begin with instructions on how to join the meeting (which was as easy as typing in one word on a chat screen). There were six people there and a woman named BJB leading the discussion. She was just as encouraging, positive and personable as Jeff. She started out by having us each introduce ourselves and promised to try and meet each of our individual needs. She would tell us to return demonstrate something she’d explained and then say, “Great job!” or that BJB is handing Shelli a gold star. I felt included and valued. BJB explained the purpose of the site and its history as she led us around the campus. She talked about many things that were discussed in our readings. For example, she explained the importance of making the members feel included such as adding photos and written bios rather than utilizing some unnamed avatar roaming the site.
BJB stated that “just a little information makes a person more real and the connection more personal.” This idea is an important feature of Tapped In. It is a community of educations and not just a place in cyberspace filled with impersonal avatars. She also gave a rationale for everything that she demonstrated or had us do. After the introductions she explained that they always start with introductions because each member is valued for what they contribute. I was impressed. The learning community is a place for educators to share resources, information, ideals, collaborate and network. Each interaction with the staff is recorded and transcribed and sent back to you. I like this feature because you can review instructions at any time.
Tapped In is intended to be a virtual university campus. So there are buildings, rooms, office, classrooms, presentation rooms, whiteboards, file folders, etc. Events on the calendar are organized as professional development. Tapped In members set up their classrooms as groups and only those invited to the group may attend. Groups are set up for members and discussions within the group are recorded asynchronously so that members can communicate in a simulated real-time discussion despite being separated across different time zones. New groups are promoted through the Tapped In newsletter. The group’s creator can also collaborate with another teacher in the groups that they have set up. For example, I could set up a nursing group and collaborate with another teacher that was a vocational education expert on the subject of nursing as a career. The members of my group would have access to the resources in that room while the vocational members would have access to mine. Private offices in Tapped In are set up to serve as a resource room. They are there to serve as a cozy place to chat with colleagues or set up a study group.
As a learning community, Tapped In can almost be defined in two different ways. A student using Tapped In would say it was definitely a Task Based Learning Community where goals are specifically defined and participation is temporary and focused on learning a set series of objectives. The transfer of knowledge in this type of group would be from the group leader or organization down to the student level.
However, an instructor or educator would probably described Tapped In as a Knowledge Based Learning Community. In this type of learning community it is the production of knowledge and the ongoing participation of members who are willing share that knowledge. Participants are committed long-term to growth of the community itself and the knowledge contained within. There is a focus on learning how to learn and to develop as instructors.
I found Tapped In to be amazing. As a new member I’m still learning about all of its goals, needs and features but from what I’ve seen there isn’t anything that I can see how it could be improved. I’m looking forward to using this site as a learning resource as I move forward with my career as both a nurse and an educator. I’m sure eventually I’ll find something worth critiquing about the site, but for now it seems perfect.
References:
Tapped In, retrieved Feb 2, 2010, from http://tappedin.org/tappedin/
Facebook, retrieved Feb 2, 2010, from www.Facebook.com
Riel, M. & Polin, L. (2004). Online Learning Communities
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