The Great Debate Reflections

In the Great Debate reflections I learned a lot of things about how to build and foster an online community and what are the negative sides of it. For example, some of my classmates’ posts were referred to the “group think” situation. This situation leads students to feel pressure to have similar thought patterns as the majority, is a kind of cyber bullying regarding ideas. Another type of cyber bullying regarding emotions was caused by the anonymity of the medium in which people may feel freer to express hostility, anger, or judgment. In both cases, a proper instructor’s intervention can solve these situations that can be harmful to the development of the community.
Another important thing that I learned about the negative side of the learning community was regards to the information presented. As Nancy White noted, the website must not be too complicated. “If your members have to wade through too much clutter to find something of interest, they won’t stick around”. This is a very important aspect of the design of the site. Nancy also suggested that we have to let the space grow organically. This approach gives your members the chance to contribute and will create a win-win situation. This situation reminds me of the Dana Dunlap voice thread in which she stated about the feeling of being “bombarded” with so many ideas and thoughts that nobody could effectively absorb any of it. Again, this situation can be overcome with a good instructor planning of activities: As Elbaum, McIntyre and Smith (2002) also noted, instructors have to “make documents and activities into ‘bited-sized’, rather than ‘meal sized’ chunks” (p. 55). As the authors noted, a good and simple rule is to limit information in web pages to not more than two or, at most, three printed pages. Separate documents also helps. Separate documentation for each assignment allow students to see clearly what they need to complete.

Again, the above-mentioned items have been the things that have most captured my attention, although there still are many important factors to consider when building online communities.

References:
Elbaum, B., McIntyre, C., & Smith, A. (2002). Essential Elements: Prepare, Design, and Teach Your Online Course. Madison, WI: Atwood Publishing.
Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
White, N. (1999). 5 Online Community Poison Pills. Message posted to http://www.fullcirc.com/index.htm