I'm still grappling with this idea of community online. Wellman and Gulia pose the question: Are Virtual Communities "Real" Communities? (And I still want to ask what, exactly, is a "real" community?) Their conclusion? A resounding probably. As many others have argued, they suggest that online links can support social links, both weak and strong.

But here's what's interesting. "Operating via the Net," say Wellman and Gulia, "virtual communities are simultaneously becoming more global and local, as worldwide connectivity and domestic matters intersect." Now a lot of time has passed since this article was published in 1997, but I think this has only become more true. The bigger the world gets, the smaller it gets, too. Somehow, the fact that you can connect with strangers around the world has somehow made it more possible to connect with people close to you. So though I have a few friends on Facebook who live a thousand miles away, most of them are actually people I see at least once a week.

I thought of this local/global thing when I came across this article. The author, Robert E. Cummings, is an American university professor who teaches composition. Not only does he go against the anti-Wikipedia zeitgeist among many academics, he actually gets his students to use it. He asks his class (a community) to examine how Wikipedia works, to prepare an entry on a film they've selected and to actually publish it. The students then monitor the response from others, who may make corrections, additions, or leave a comment. We're living in a world where a small community of writers can publish instantly to the world. As the author of the article points out, "this puts the writing teacher in the role of assisting students in making meaning for an audience with their text...."

And then there's "Lost in Cyberspace" by Brainard and Brinkerhoff. They describe two U.S.-based websites that create a network of interest (community?) around improving conditions in Afghanistan. These two networks are almost exclusively online, and yet they provide support for people across the planet, many of whom may not even have internet access.

Is a class a community? Is a cause a community? I hope Sherida won't mind my quoting her comments on my last post, because I think it helps me understand this idea much better: "Perhaps thinking of community as a process not as an end product would be useful when we want to encourage people to associate with each other."

This interests me as I move more into the field of communicating with university students using social media. We sometimes use the word "community" as a way to try to attract students to our services. In fact, our job in the student life field is to give students a sense of "community", something we ask specifically in benchmarking surveys. If I think of community as a process, it makes life a lot easier. Our students may have a relatively short time here, but we can hope to be a positive part of their process.

And, for no reason other than the fact that we were talking in class about dancing bears last night:

On Community and Connection

After Tom and I completed our presentation a couple of weeks ago, I began to think about the idea of online communication/education vs. face-to-face. A few questions came to mind:

- Is online education better than face-to-face education in some circumstances?

- In an age where there are entire universities online (or offer most of their programs online), does face-to-face even matter anymore?

- Are there situations in which face-to-face learning will become irrelevant, or can computer-mediated learning replace anything?

I don't know the answer to these questions, though I suspect that computers will enhance, not replace, in-person learning. But it's not without its concerns. When I look at the picture above, it reminds me of the experience of our presentation, where we had everyone together in a room, but they were all working individually. It wasn't until the discussion afterwards that we came back together as a group. I think there really is a risk of alienating ourselves if we focus too much of our attention on what we do online. So there need to be ways to incorporate human interaction with what we do directly with computers.

But surely this is possible, and don't people seek out human interaction in most situations? This also brings us to the concept of community, which we've been discussing for the last couple of weeks in class. One of the things that we hear all the time is talk of online communities. At my work, we even use the portal for students to have community around their interests and needs. These communities we've developed are basically opportunities for us to communicate with students and have them participate in the things that interest them. It hasn't really worked out that way. Another example of this community concept, which is based on in-person experience, is U of T's First-Year Learning Communities. It's a very successful project, but it's not so much a community as it is a shared-interest group.

Community is not easy to create. It's possible, I guess, but I wonder if the idea of pushing this idea of "community" on students is perhaps a little naive. Perhaps even a little romantic. I find myself in agreement with Fernback (2007) from the February 11 readings. It may be time for us to move beyond the idea of community.

I went to good old Wikipedia to look up what they were saying about the concept, and even they argue that, "Since the advent of the internet, the concept of community no longer has geographical limitations, as people can now virtually gather in an online community and share common interests regardless of physical location."

We can argue that Facebook, discussion forums and listservs provide and support community. But when we think about community, we think of tight networks with some kind of permanence. Does this apply online?

Fernback argues that what we call communities are actually better referred to as networks that might have differing levels of commitment. If we can look at it this way, and move beyond the idea of community - which gives us warm feelings, but really has little meaning - we can stop worrying about creating something that is too hard to define and get to understanding the nature of the relationship between our face-to-face commitments and our online ones.

Some have suggested that technology can save us...

I work in student communications and learning skills, which at first blush might sound like two very divergent fields, but much of the work I do seems to come together in surprising ways. For the last year or so, I have been trying to figure out "Web 2.0" all the while playing with it both as a hobby, and at work. A year ago, I saw the web as pretty much an informational medium, a place that someone can find out just about anything at any time of day. Even though I prized both my e-mail and Facebook accounts, it hadn't occurred to me that the internet had become a social place.

Mason and Rennie argue that "websites are moving away from isolated information silos to sources of organized content with far more linking of information within the site." And as Wellman and Hogan point out, the internet has become part of a "media multiplexity":

Rather than only connecting online, in-person or by telephone, many relationships are complex dances of serendipitous face-to-face encounters, scheduled meetings, telephone chats, email exchanges with one person or several others, and broader online discussions among those sharing interests. Extroverts are especially likely to embrace the ways in which the Internet gives them an extra and efficient means of community. However, introverts can feel overloaded and alienated.

I hear that. As someone who leans toward introversion, I can't keep up with the constant rolling of updates from my friends (most of whom I wouldn't actually consider real-life friends) on Facebook. And more than once I've had spirited e-mail exchanges with people that have gone on for days, but even though we might often see each other during that time, the e-mails don't even get mentioned. A complex dance indeed.

The web, then, has become a meeting place, and though one might think that people would be more likely to allow themselves to be different online, my experience has been that highly social people are just as social online, and quiet people don't make any more noise on the web than they do in face-to-face interactions. But it does allow those who are less outgoing to participate - quietly - by seeing what's going on.

In my work, I often think about those we serve, and how we can better serve them. But I'm more interested in how to reach the ones we aren't serving, the ones who won't show up for help with their studies, won't go to a workshop, but will seek help from a website at two in the morning. While we can offer web pages with tips, what the new technologies offer is a chance to have a conversation.

I've begun to discover this with a new student blog I manage called UpbeaT. While I still have a lot to learn about blogging, this exchange of comments showed me how blogging goes beyond simple sharing of information into conversation. I think the potential for true interactivity with students at U of T remains largely untapped. I also have my doubts about the concerns I hear that using web technology will alienate students and keep them from wanting personal contact. In a media multiplexity, our online presence can even act as a front door, a safe way for students to enter, especially those who might not feel ready to make their first entry through a physical doorway. Technology isn't the only answer - it won't save us - but university can be an alienating place anyway, and those of us who work in student life need to find as many ways to help them connect as we can: