Comments on: Block 2 Summary – Virtual Communities http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/kevinh/2011/11/17/communities/ part of the MSc in E-learning at the University of Edinburgh Fri, 09 Dec 2011 12:41:34 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 By: Jeremy Keith Knox http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/kevinh/2011/11/17/communities/#comment-97 Jeremy Keith Knox Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:41:17 +0000 http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/kevinh/?p=379#comment-97 I really enjoyed this post Kevin. You caution towards participative and 'ideal' communities is a really valid point to make I think. The popularity and general acceptance of social constructivist theory, particularly in education, combined with the hysteria of 'web 2.0' technology and the supposed interaction that it affords, has created a general acceptance that communication, openness and sociability are the only things that are important in knowledge production. This part of your post got me thinking about how that act of 'connecting' is not enough in isolation. It is notable the number of times I come across discussions that focus on community formation, how to get people connected, yet assume that once this happens the job is done; as if useful knowledge production is automatic once people are connected. I think you raise some intricate considerations of community here, and I would say that your critical stance is certainly warranted where these discussions of community, agency and participation are given a lot of emphasis. Is boiling everything down to 'lurker', 'insider' or 'newbie' really enough? The dissatisfaction with established notions of community that I sense in your post here gets me thinking about how we should perhaps be rethinking a lot of this stuff. Haven't we always been connected anyway – in a posthuman sense of interdependence? Surely looking at communities (simply people that we interact with) is rather superficial way of understanding the broader processes and flows in which we operate? It is perhaps the less obvious, invisible, connections between people, systems and non-humans that may be more important in understanding knowledge production. Stimulating stuff, thanks Kevin! I really enjoyed this post Kevin. You caution towards participative and ‘ideal’ communities is a really valid point to make I think. The popularity and general acceptance of social constructivist theory, particularly in education, combined with the hysteria of ‘web 2.0′ technology and the supposed interaction that it affords, has created a general acceptance that communication, openness and sociability are the only things that are important in knowledge production. This part of your post got me thinking about how that act of ‘connecting’ is not enough in isolation. It is notable the number of times I come across discussions that focus on community formation, how to get people connected, yet assume that once this happens the job is done; as if useful knowledge production is automatic once people are connected.

I think you raise some intricate considerations of community here, and I would say that your critical stance is certainly warranted where these discussions of community, agency and participation are given a lot of emphasis. Is boiling everything down to ‘lurker’, ‘insider’ or ‘newbie’ really enough? The dissatisfaction with established notions of community that I sense in your post here gets me thinking about how we should perhaps be rethinking a lot of this stuff. Haven’t we always been connected anyway – in a posthuman sense of interdependence? Surely looking at communities (simply people that we interact with) is rather superficial way of understanding the broader processes and flows in which we operate? It is perhaps the less obvious, invisible, connections between people, systems and non-humans that may be more important in understanding knowledge production. Stimulating stuff, thanks Kevin!

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