Carla is auditing our class. She comes to class and sits outside of our circle. I have heard her chime in a thought (mostly to Scott or Cole but occasionally to a small group) on a couple of occasions. What I want to know is...DO YOU THINK SHE IS A MEMBER OF OUR COMMUNITY?There is a method to my madness, and it involves Wenger's concept of participation. Is someone a member of a community without participation? Are there layers of community based on participation?My thinking is that a class consists of a mixture of people that have varying levels of
participation. Is someone who has a lower level of participation if any
participation at all a member of the community? Does the level of
participation create a hierarchy of value or status within the
community, meaning the more you participate, the more you are valued in
the community? You answer has implications for Carla's membership (if we decide to issue her a membership). Is she one of us? If so, is she of lesser value because her participation is not as active as other members of our community?**DISCLOSURE - Carla, you rock! I just have been trying to ask questions and prove a point. I needed a practical, relevant, concrete example. I hope you don't mind. :-)
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participation. Is someone who has a lower level of participation if any
participation at all a member of the community? Does the level of
participation create a hierarchy of value or status within the
community, meaning the more you participate, the more you are valued in
the community? You answer has implications for Carla's membership (if we decide to issue her a membership). Is she one of us? If so, is she of lesser value because her participation is not as active as other members of our community?**DISCLOSURE - Carla, you rock! I just have been trying to ask questions and prove a point. I needed a practical, relevant, concrete example. I hope you don't mind. :-)
14 Comments
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Bury
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I thought Wenger had a specific example like this (the kid in the back of the classroom), and (I thought) he clearly stated that any participation--low, medium, or high--includes that kid in the community. Then again, looking through Wenger, I can't find the passage that reads this.
Anyway, I would argue that Carla is, in fact, a member of our community. The very fact that she does intermittently chime in adds to her level of participation, but there is also the tacit participation: although she sits behind me, I'm sure both instructors often make eye contact with her; she nods when they say something interesting or with which she agrees. We may not notice it, but there is still interaction (and therefore, participation) going on, even if she is not "technically" or "officially" a member of the "CI 597C" community.
Here's a question: Are those "thousands" of people who read our Pligg site (creepy!) also members of the CI 597C community?
Here's a question: Are those "thousands" of people who read our Pligg site (creepy!) also members of the CI 597C community?
Answer: Yes!
This is a constant question in online contexts (and maybe real life contexts) - Are lurkers (official title of people who read online without posting) part of the community? This then extends to classes in this way - what about a 200 person lecture hall? Are they members of the community if they don't speak, but come to class? What if they facebook through class?
Could you consider the act of making oneself physically present or electronically present an act indicative of participation?
Participation comes in many forms and is not limited to speaking. Someone could be very talkative and just spew verbal vomit while someone else may seem not to be participating but is actually engaging very deeply with the dialog, though merely internally. I think participation reflects impact; as Wenger kept saying, they both effect each other. Carla is impacting the dynamic of the class just as our lurkers are while those of us who seem to be more actively engaged, are also shaped by them.
A big indicator of being in a community is a sense of connectedness. Some literature defines this as putting the good of the community above one's self-interests. Does this apply to lurkers? Or does it mean that the literature's definition of connectedness in a 'real' community does not apply to a 'virtual' community?
Interesting. I wonder whether/if Wenger would weigh in on the role of the purpose of participation. I know and use most of the technology that is being introduced in the class. Scott and Cole are a couple of my favorite people and colleagues. I know many students in the class. I guess I am really trying to be a "fly on the wall" and see how they pull off the challenging task of engaging students with the technology, as well as with complex ideas about learning and teaching. Thus my purpose influences the way I choose to participate with the group. I think these factors make my involvement something different than legitimate peripheral participation as described by Wenger -- not sure what, though.
Lurkers are connected, we just do not know the effect of our influence. I have lurked and learned, and in that way participated. So, perhaps not the same definition in this new evolution of community. Interesting. I have over 300 people subscribed to my horse blog, but I hear that others are reading it without subscriptions...It is a community but a larger one that would be cumbersome if everyone put the good of the community over the self. Too many cooks...????
Maybe not actively participating IS putting the good of the community above oneself. Maybe it is because the community member doesn't act mischievous or perform any actions that are detrimental to the group?
They are passively putting the good of the community above themselves, right? This also makes the opposite true: someone who acts in a manner detrimental to the community is not putting the community's interests above their own and is therefore not connected as a member of that community.
But, Wenger also argues (and I agree with him here) that members of a community are heterogeneous--or, to be clearer, not homogeneous. I take this to mean that even those whose actions are "detrimental" (how do we determine that?) to the community are still part of the community. Their actions, whether for "good" or "evil," shape how the community operates and reacts; wouldn't those "detrimental" manners work to bring the community closer together? Let's take one of my favorite examples: the decade of the 1960s. How many horrors did black people, women, soldiers, etc. go through, and how much more united were the American people as a result? Would you say they became more of a community? Would that have happened without those "detrimental" acts?
These notions of presence and participation are definitely intriguing. I wonder about the flies and the lurkers, and think about when I travel. When I visit a new location, be it another state, country, or virtual chat room, I am a visitor (at least initially). I may interact with people, engage in the local culture, and reside there for some short time, but after awhile, I go home. Would I be a member of any of those communities if I am just "visiting" and passing by?
I also want to add that there's no time limits to membership in a community. How would we define that, anyway? A community could last years or minutes, especially in the Web 2.0 environment. And, as I mentioned in the comment above, visitors ARE part of the community because they shape the community itself. With your example: how many communities do you know that rely heavily on tourism? Surely, they would still be communities (or, would they?) without tourists, but the dynamics of the community change with tourists. I guess another question is: are these two different communities (with tourists or without), or two different aspects of the same community?
Carla is absolutely part of our community. She adds her ideas and perspective to the class. In addition, she is mutually engaged because she completes the same assignments and helps us to make connections.
Here is something I have been thinking about with regard to 'peripheral' members of our community.
With Carla, or even internet lurkers (hello out there to all of our fans; we do this for you, and thank you for your support!), there is some quantifiable and observable way for us to know that they are part of our community. Carla directly interacts with many of us, and the lurkers (hello again) directly interact with our content, even if in a passive way.
But what about this:
Every Thursday, after I leave Chambers, I spend the next hour telling my fiancee all about our class. She knows all about the technologies we discuss (and I have even hooked her on using some of them, like Google Reader), and all about the discussions we have. In fact, sometimes she even engages me by trying to form and articulate the difference between knowledge and learning, or community and identity -- an extension of our discussions.
Despite this, she has never been to any of the class sites -- Pligg, the class blog, your blogs, or my blog -- and I have yet to bring up any of her points in class.
So is she a member of our community? Unlike Carla, who we can interact with in class, and lurkers (one more shout out to my homies in cyberspace) who leave a statistic that Cole can identify through Google Analytics, my fiancee leaves no trace (until this comment, anyway). If you think she is a member of our community, why do you think that?