SETH GODIN is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change. Seth's most recent post came to me via Will Richardson's Google Reader.
Jobs of the future, #1: Online Community Organizer
As someone who is not only passionate about building and leading virtual learning communities, and even earns legal tender helping others work through community creation (I am on a team conference call with IBM's e-mentoring program as I write this, helping to troubleshoot their community issues) I am excited, but not surprised to hear Seth go in this direction.
I agree with Nancy White, "First, this is not a job of the future, it is work of today." Many are doing this type of thing today. However, I also see online community organizing as a 21st Century skill set that needs to be mastered by teachers and taught to students to prepare them for the future.
An educational online community organizer is someone who understands teaching and learning and the needs
of teachers that also has a well developed understanding of the changing learning landscape and what web-based tools support it. Community organizers are visionaries and must not be afraid of
innovation or change.
As I ponder the VLC work I do I realize there are many questions that dominate my thoughts.
For example:
- How do different members of a virtual community create, understand, reuse, and learn from knowledge?
- How do the kinds of knowledge and learning supported by virtual communities improve the effectiveness of members' everyday activities?
- What barriers exist to knowledge sharing and learning in a VLC and how can these be lowered?
- How many participants make a critical mass in a VLC? How many is too many and how many is not enough?
- What factors predict on-going sustainability of virtual communities?
- What were the perceived merits and complaints of the VLC as a medium for learning?
- Can the positive components of virtual communities (scaffolding, facilitation, lack of group norms, time and place independence, etc.) overcome the obstacles (cultural differences, attrition, etc.) and cause communities of practice to develop?
- What are some valid measures of community development?
- How can learners be motivated to take part in virtual academic or social community activities?
- What communication/collaboration tools foster the development of a learning community?
- What tool features lend themselves to different aspects of collaboration and community-building?
What questions about virtual communities of practice do you have? Help me generate a list of what we should be thinking about in terms of this powerful learning/teaching strategy.
This is eactly why I am starting up People Weavers - the community for community organizers. www.peopleweavers.com. As this field emerges, we need a venue to be able to work with each other, discuss best practices, recommend tools, and collaborate on the hurdles we all face.
Posted by: Peter Gulka | August 04, 2007 at 01:15 AM
There is I think a critical mass in a VLC, too many and actually keeping abreast of the conversation can become a full time job. The key I think is having a community which acts as a good quality sounding board. Another key factor for me is access - now with the outbreak globally of Tweets, which can be brought instantly to your PC or Cell Phone, the access issue appears to be surmountable ( it even beats aggregating to something like bloglines, where you have to go look).
Tweets - like the one I just received from Brian Crosby ref a problem with browser crashing was succinctly discussed helpfully in less than 140 characters - great for keeping the messages brief and to the point- which does not always happen in other forms of VLC.
Paul
Posted by: Paul Harrington | August 04, 2007 at 03:26 PM