Andrews - Online Communities Post

Why are online communities important for e-learners?

In person classes provide more context to learning that online courses simply do not have the ability to. Using online communities allows the online course to add a lot of that real word context back into the learning.

For example, working with a variety of people leads to gaining multiple perspectives on a subject, meaning that their own perspective is enhanced and broadened.

Also encouraging the learners to help each other and teach what they have learned to others, allows them to apply what they have learned.

What strategies work best to establish them?

Shared Goals: Having shared goals promotes learners to interact with each other, essentially forcing them to work with each other. In order for this to work effectively the learners need to feel like they are in control what they goals and are and who they can work with, or it may backfire due to conflcting personlaities and interests.

Community Identity: It is important to 'market' the community or else the learners may not know about it or know how to take advantage of it for their own benefit.

Mutual Appropriation: This is a key strategy because mentoring can make a significant impact on people in any setting and applying this to online learning allows students to build bonds with each other that go beyond the confines of the course.