1. What is the power of a virtual community consisting of unique individuals? What are the power, capabilities, and possibilities of a virtual learning community? (TIMES magazine, Dec. 23, 2006 issue)
The virtual community is not bound by spatial or temporal boundaries. People from all over the world can join a community based on a "common sense of identity" and are no long bound by location barriers or time barriers. Eckhold believes that these communities exist in "effect but not actuality" and are "transient and recurrently emerging." Each of these people bring their own set of ideas and information to the community, thus helping it to constantly change and grow.
The power, capabilities, and possibilities of Virtual Learning Communities are limitless. They will be able to grow, expand, and develop with the ideas brought into the Communities by their members. This "new" Web 2.0 is empowering individual consumers by tapping the expertise of everyone out there to enhance products" (Time, 2006)
2. A community may be dysfunctional, troubled, dormant, dissipated and fail. Why does a community survive and develop, and why does it fail? What are the optimal conditions to sustain a community?
To stay healthy, a virtual community needs to either keep reinventing itself, which is cost and labor intensive, or it needs to assume a "stage of life" population model so that it can repopulate and replenish the "ranks of the established members who opt to leave". In other words, Virtual Communities need to constantly attract members of their audience to stay healthy.
A Virtual Community that does not bring in new members will ultimately fail. There are many reasons why people leave these communities, the main one being that their "needs" are no longer being met by the community as a whole. The Math Forum, which is a thriving Virtual Community, allows participants to interact around the services and resources that the participants generate together. These interactions contribute to a "Math" culture that encourages collaboration on problem posing and problem solving.
3. What is the design and structure of successful Virtual Community and implications for sustaining an effective Virtual Communities?
Factors that builders of virtual communities need to take into account include a focus on continued shared goals and a continuity of leadership. These Virtual Communities "promote communications between interested parties that are committed to using computers and the Internet to enhance what they know..." These communities need to stay "fluid and dynamic" which means the community must be able to change to meet the needs of it's audience.
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The study of virtual communities and why they thrive or fail is interesting. They have to be engaging or informational enough for people to want to spend time in the community. Are you a member or any?
ReplyDeleteI think that the MediaMoo was a starting block for other sites. Those that broke off from it and started other sites made them more user friendly. I believe that especially now, if the site is not user friendly, people go find another site.
ReplyDeleteYour use of the term "reinvention" seems quite apt to me. To remain viable, any site or community needs to be flexible and understand how its members crave change. This is true even down to the need to update the look of one's website regularly!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your answers. Your answer to number three proved what we read about the success of the Math website. It talked about the Math doctor not just giving answers but helping the person find out how to get to the answer on their own. That builds confidence and encourages life long learning and building blocks for application to higher education. Another goal of that site and that you stated was to give the user the tools to enhance what they already know and use the site to share that in their class. Good responses.
ReplyDeleteGood answers. You really said it beautifully. I agree. The way for a virtual community to thrive is to keep change an important factor in design. The community will become stagnant if the creators or members do not take change into account and develop as their audience and/or members change. As their members/audience move on to something else, they must find ways to bring in new people.
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