Progression of the group process

Our group is still in the early stages of the planning. We are beginning to learn each other's negotiating and participation styles. So far, we have been very effective about communicating expectations, each taking different roles at different times. We all have shown active contribution, notified one another of our schedules, and negotiation of topics and writing tool. We have also shown great trust in each other to edit and work with the ideas. It has went pretty smooth so far.

We are also just beginning to learn about our socio-cultural constructs that we bring when forming a community. I think that it will come out more and more as time goes on. Right now, I think that we have very similar socio-cultural constructs in terms of gender, leadership, time, assertiveness, and recognition (Khalasa 2007). This may be why it has been going well. I think that this will be enhanced with the next steps of our group work.

Once we set up guidelines, this will be come more appearant as we see what one another thinks are important. We were also bouncing around the idea of using other tech tools to experience them ourselves, as this is part of our research topic. It will be interesting to see how we negotiate which tools and time to work together, especially since sychronous conversation can be the most difficult part. As we continue to work together the formation of social capital will gain its momentum, as these venues will help us to "develop the capacity to work together to better understand and to take action on issues that are important" to us (Imel & Stein 2003).


Imel, S. and Stein, D. (2003). Creating Self-Awareness of Learning that Occurs in Community. Retrieved on 1/12/2009 from http://www.alumni-osu.org/midwest/midwest%20papers/Imel%20&%20Stein--Done.pdf


Khalasa, D. (2007). Multicultural E-learning teamwork: Social and cultural characteristics and influence. As found in A. Edmundson (editor), Globalized e-learning cultural challenges. (p 307 - 325).

Best Practices for Increasing and Maintaining Group Particiation

For our group project, I am interested in exploring the best curriculum and design strategies that increase student motivation and participate in social networking with E-learning 2.0 tools. Also, how to create group participation that is stemming from the students desire to participate, not because they are being graded, but because they want to and find it a valuable experience. One is example is providing tools and activities that correlate with various social Web 2.0 learning styles. Another could be Web 2.0 notification tools that help with creating and maintaining group cohesion, such as Twitter, etc. Of course that there are so many other more aspects that we could explore. The focus could be very specific to very general. I am open.

Since I am creating a self-paced course, students may be a different places in curriculum. Thus participating and sustaining collaborative learning can be a challenge. Finding a way to leveraging every opportunity to increase motivation and participation is imperative. I think that this challenge would be a subject that would also be pertinent to all types of courses, whether cohort or self-paced.

Sustaining a Vibrant and Innovative Online Community of Learning

I feel that the ways that you keep a community vibrant an innovative is to continue to network and not only share ideas, but continue to build relationships and trust. Additionally, creating a group identity. Part of this is to find commonalities, defining joint projects, continuing to stay connected, doing more activities, asking for advice, and collecting artifacts. These are just a few ideas that I came across Wenger (1998).

Wegner, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning as a Social System. Systems Thinker. June. Access on 1/18/2009 from http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/lss.shtml.

Excitement and Concerns in Initial Group Formation

So far, the team involvement is just in its initial stages. Everyone seems motivated and exciting. Once again, I feel like I am the slacker, since I am the last one to get my posting up. However, I at least told everyone upfront. This is not usually how I operate in the course. I am usually a little bossy and wanting to be the first one to post, trying to put my ideas out first. My other commitments are preventing the initiation stages. Also, I am practicing trying to be a better community member by just relaxing and not worrying so much about if it will get done. If it will all come together and meet my expectations on how the final product to look.

In prior group experiences, when I saw the final product I was seriously concerned about how it turned out and what was going to be turned in. I stepped on some toes by making changes that were not really "bought into" by the other group members. I didn't hear any negative responses and they all agreed that the changes improved the paper. However, I felt like they maybe were put off. So, by taking a back seat I am hoping to make more friends. It also feels so much better not being a control freak.

So this time, I am really pretty relaxed, impressed with my team. I would like to know my other team members a little better. The blogs are helping. So, I'm just along for the ride trying to learn as much as I can, wanting to make more relationships, and wanting to learn how to best form the relationships and put together a successful project.

I can't wait to learn more about my team members and watching our team grow. I know that this will be a great experience.

Creating Partnerships and Trust

When forming a partnership for the interview I felt apprehensive about even asking for a partner. I was afraid that I would be the one at the end waiting for someone to join, or get rejected. It is funny because this was part of the assignment, so someone was going to have to accept. However, I think that in real online experience, it may be more likely to happen. I think that initiating it in the "real" online world may be a bit more difficult because others may be more picky with who they invest their "social capital".

Once Nancy and I had formally made our choice, picking and utilizing one way of communicating was difficult. I already had my own forum, so I tried using that. It was helpful in some ways, but a lot of the central communication was through email. Also, coordinating our schedules and pace of participation was a challenge. I felt like I was slowing down the process because of my other commitments. I hoped that Nancy didn't get frustrated in case she was more of a type A personality.

Once we got going, and Nancy provided as a good model of how to do the questions and answer. I felt like she shared a lot of herself, this allowed me to open up also. I think that there was an equal balance of bonding and openness, while at the same time some closed distance. I felt at times there were some personal boundaries that we didn't cross, details we didn't go into. Like we weren't trying to really put everything all out there like a BFF. However, I wished we had shared pictures, or webcast, or even voice. We can always do that as we work together.

Despite this, I feel like we started the process of bonding and getting to know one another that may be able to extend and grow in the future. A first step. I also appreciated Nancy opening up about her some difficult life challenges, as well as the role religion plays in her life. She took a big risk since you never know how the other person will react. I too took a risk in letting her know that I didn't really have the same beliefs, but wanted to know that I can see the beauty in her relationship with God and that it wasn't going to be a problem for me. I was still afraid that she would feel like she couldn't fully be herself. However, I still know that if we did have the same beliefs our bond may actually be a bit stronger, since there is such a strong bond within a religious community by its very nature.

I felt like after getting to know her more, writing the piece to share was easier than I thought. It was interesting how when I created a narrative through writing, it all came together and I was weirdly able to connect more. I think that it is interesting how there is a disconnect between what I would have written about myself, and what she wrote about me. I realized that the information that I provided to her was just a small tid-bit and maybe I wasn't effective in sharing who I am. But it was also interesting to see how she viewed me. I then understood what she saw, heard, and understood.

Social Network experiences

Online communities that I have been involved with include an e-mail listserve on Af Am Studies since 1999. I have recently joined various social networking groups and youtube groups revolving around Elearning. I have also started actually responding to blog posts and getting feedback from others around common subject, such as the Moodle and elearning. I definitely need to expand my social networks and look forward to doing so.

Historical Aspects of Online Communities

Aspects of the history of online communities that are important to me are patterns, lessons learned, and best practices. In addition to learning reflective, theoretical, and analytical research on the subjects, I would also like have more examples of what worked and didn't worked. I would like to see curriculum and activity examples from a variety of online instructors across disciplines and age groups. I find that a lot of the research seems to be very abstract, it doesn't really give examples how and what they did. It is difficult as a new instructor to have to always be "creative", acting alone in trying to put it into practice. I think that this is where using social networking inside and outside to discuss actual implementation may be a better option than going to research.