Simon – thanks for your links.

What James is saying is that because an individual has not set up the Ning space there is far less reason for them to want to contribute compared to say their own blog. If you look at etool.ning it has progressed as James suggested. Started off well and now I am struggling to get people to want to participate — Better Blog is having similar issues. Which is okay all you can do is encourage conversation but if you compare levels of conversation between these two sites: my blog has more conversation happening than etools Ning does.

So where does that leave etools.ning? I have no problem with it. Our Ning communities have inspired people to get involved and our members have gained. Just as my blog has done the same. I will continue to use both online tools to inspire.

Thanks for the nice works about maintaining my online networks — even if due to work and family commitments I am really bad at commenting back on readers comments. I do value them. As always I thank you for all your support and help. You inspire me — and I still think I am now your Mini-me.

Dan – LOL Harriet is a whirl wind in real life . Lets hope she has not got comment notification switched on (mean in the nicest way). The chaotic mess would just totally appeal to her – and she is right but you and I both know that while we may find this type of learning good it is not going to appeal to all learners.

As I said before my mind has tried to grapple with too many systems being discussed. Which in many ways are different. If we just look from an education point of view that in itself is complex. How you structure elearning into a program for face-to-face students is totally different from the mechanisms you would use for students that are totally remote, and who have minimal contact with you.

Getting back to face-to-face one of the biggest messages from mlearn was the fact that too often teachers adopt the use of technology and throw out all good teaching practice. Or worse still add technology to already bad teaching practice. I agree we need to remember good teaching practice, it should be about supplementing not replacing and as you point out maintain your methods of communication.

Cait – thanks you have definitely helped unclutter my mind!

As you point out I am talking about reflecting on how online communities work based on 4 scenarios that I am trying to work out how to deal with. Within each scenario you have highlighted the issue — I need to go back and reflect on the four systems being discussed and put it into context of what I really am wanting to achieve — hence why might it be important.

Any more thoughts please feel free to add them.

Once again, once I have totally uncluttered my mind I will post on this. Please note issues relating to online facilitation, building sense of community and where does sense of community fit with online facilitation is inside my head scrabbling it — did I say Harriet was the whirlwind?

Knowledge collection doesn’t need to be collaborative, but if the content isn’t used or it’s hard to update, a new system will be born outside it.

Collaboration comes in many forms, verbal, written, pictures. Few systems do all of these well, so there is usually more than one system.

Twitter’s difference is the time relevance to a large but chosen group. Old news has passed by, but big news is repeated often.

Getting an online community going for education is a good idea, but some will always prefer alternative online tools (there are enough of them!) and others will just never be interested. The online world is not where they choose to live or socialise.

It just means if you take online communities as a way to reach students it has to be a supplement to, and not a replacement for whatever you have used up to now for communication with students.

Dan

Not sure why James Farmer would say that there is less ownership in an online community such as a Ning network than in a blog. I can understand how this applies to a “Web 1.0″ website that just presents information.

I administer 2 Nings, and belong to about 13 others. Each has its own sense of community. Certainly, each has its own shelf life based largely on the founder’s vision and persistence, as well as the core group that surrounds the founder .

Martha Goldman’s TROPIC project evaluationis here: http://www.avetra.org.au/publications/14-Goldman.pdf
Martha says that it is important to build a strong core group first, and then maintain it carefully.

Martha also refers to Wenger’s community of practice requirements: domain, community & practice

Other helpful publications about building online communities are here:
http://videolinq.tafe.net/learningtechnologies2007/papers.html#mark_j

Sue, I admire your energy and persistence in creating and maintaining your online network. You have a precise manner that gets right to the point, and you have a genius for elucidating information – the right information – from people. I see this as both your strength and your community’s strength. I think that ownership in a community flows from members being involved – being paid attention to – in this way.

Actually I don’t think I am making much sense at all. It probably relates back to the 4 reasons why I want to understand online communities better – 1. Educational use 2. training use 3. organisation use 4. personal learning.

Before I get us all totally confused with my ramblings I think I will reflect longer on my thoughts.

Please feel free to post comments to help me unclutter my thoughts — could be the four context’s is clouding my thought process (headache ). So if you can help me come to terms of similarities/differences would be good.

Do we NEED to build networks? Well probably yes in this ‘on the cusp’ phase of our learning about the whole Web 2.0 kit and kaboodle, certainly in a formal educational setting. I suspect many of these communities of practice or learning will drop away, and others take their place as tools, needs, learnings and learners change. Along the way, if you’ve got some kindred souls prepared to engage in mutual hand holding to assist in the journey, then all’s good.

As to ownership, well in my experience working in a team-enterprise (theatre production) ownership, accepted responsibility, and understanding of the goal by the individuals in any team will pretty much get you to where you need to be. The ‘distributed leadership’ model works for me in most community enterprise. You know, ‘the sum is greater than the parts’ thing?