The Essentials of Supporting an Online Learning Community

Posted on 23 March 2011 by James McLuckie and tagged as community, support

One of the things we increasingly finding is that our clients want to talk about building a learning community environment for their users to feel a part of. No one needs to be sold on the idea of learning through social interaction. The issue is that a lot of people aren't sure of the best way of accomplishing this.

Where to Start?

The advancements made in social media in the last few years have brought with them even greater possibilities for learners to connect, share and collaborate. But, on the flip side of this, if someone is trying to put together a community for the first time, it can be a bit overwhelming.

What tools do you pick? What is appropriate support for a learning community online? How do you make sure your learning and performance outcomes are achieved? And, most importantly, how do you ensure a rich learning experience for learners?

What is a 'Learning Community'?

Digital technology has reshaped the concept of 'community' away from geographical considerations, to one of relationships and shared interests. For me a learning community is:

A group of people who have a common interest in learning, innovating and exploring a particular subject or topic. The emphasis is on collaborative discovery and understanding, and knowledge creation. Through these exchanges the understanding and capability of the group as a whole progresses.

The term learning community is a term often used to describe cohorts of formal learners. However, we shouldn't limit the term to this - a group of individuals involved in a collective effort of understanding is a learning community. Some of you might identify more with the term community of practice, which refers to practitioners in a particular field learning together.

It's a Bit Like Cooking

In cooking, you start off with an empty pot to which you add ingredients. The ingredients you add will be dependent on what it is that you are trying to make, what your particular taste is, what's available when you go to the shops, sometimes you have to make adjustments to take into account dietary requirements etc. In short, there is no magic, one fits all formula. It's often a case of try and taste. However, there are usually stock ingredients that are the core of a particular recipe. So, here's what I think are the core ingredients for a supporting a learning community.

Ingredient 1: Create a Central Space

Think about some of the most successful TV programmes of recent years: Fraiser, Sex and the City, Friends. In each of these, no matter what adventures or scrapes the characters get into, there is always a regular, central place where they frequently get together. In the case of these three shows it is coffee houses.

It might seem like a frivolous analogy, but if you think about the make-up of these situations:

• they provide a comfortable safe environment where the characters feel that they can be themselves
• there's structure and form to proceedings, created either by personal circumstances, such as the characters arranging meeting times, or by the logistics of the location
• they regularly step outside the community space, and come back to it with stories of their day or experiences, which they freely share
• problems are solved, issues debated, plans are made, and support is given through the group members interacting with each other

And I think that's a fairly good model in which to try and replicate as the hub of your community. So think about a space where you can allow your learners to:

• meet
• easily navigate
• get information
• collaborate and share

There are various tools you can use to create such a space. Moodle, Facebook, and Bloomfire all spring to mind, but there are many more.

Ingredient 2: Create Member Profiles

This might sound like quite a minor requirement. But in any social situation it's important to get to know the people that you are working with. And online, a very effective way of doing that is to encourage members to compile a profile that tells everyone else a bit about them.

By finding out a bit about each member of the community you can discover common ground, and explore opportunities to work together. As learners embark on a learning journey together, having an understanding of who is on the ride with them will give them a greater sense of where the community strengths are and where interests lie.

Think about including:

• personal details
• a photograph
• employment details
• professional interests
• links to the learner's LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and blog pages

Another fun way is to ask learners to record a video introduction and post this on YouTube. The key point here is you're helping people to build tangible relationships with each other.

Ingredient 3: Jointly Develop Guidelines

By 'guidelines' I am not talking about a list of rules and regulations and those not following them will be banished. But many of your learners may not actively contributed to an online community before and may be slightly unsure of how to participate. There are always some who find it takes some adjusting and a bit of time to feel like they are moving fluidly in the environment.

A very good way I have found of helping people to feel comfortable in their online surroundings is to have an initial activity in which the community collaborate on a set of guidelines, usually on a wiki or a discussion board, at the start of the process. It's very clear that this is not a list of 'dos and don'ts', but a set of principles for getting the most out of the community.

These might include:

• Participation - take part in activities, swop stories, share information freely.
• Trust - learners need a safe environment to experiment, make mistakes that can be learned from, ask questions and check understanding.
• Respect - often one of the great elements of a community is the diverse mix of people with different perspectives, ideas, and backgrounds. Unless the purpose of a contribution is to disrupt or antagonise, then it's valid. Everyone in a community deserves to be listened to.
• Purpose - have a shared sense of understanding on what everyone is trying to achieve in the community. Ask learners to share expectations and areas of interest.

Ingredient 4: Include Interactive Activities

The burst of social tools and applications over the last few years means that there is potential to be really creative online and create truly dynamic learning experiences through activities. However, the activities and the tools they will be run on should support the learning and performance outcomes, not vice versa. Additionally, the principles of good instructional design are equally as valid in online environments - is the activity going to enhance and aid the learning experience in a meaningful and purposeful way?

I have, unfortunately, been asked to take part in activities that seemed to be included more because the tutor had got a new toy and wanted to try it out, and that was the focus rather than creating the conditions for effective learning. This made everyone feel confused and frustrated.

The focus needs to be on the purpose of the activity, not the tool. For example, the statement shouldn't be "let's run an activity on a wiki" - it's "let's build a glossary and a wiki is the best tool to help us do this".

Ingredient 5: Experiment

You may be using software or applications that have activities built-in. For instance, if you've selected Moodle as your community environment, then it comes with a variety as part of the package. "Let's give it a whirl" is the key here. Experiment with different tools to see which ones get the learning across most effectively.

Obviously, it's often best to do this before introducing it to the community, but there are times when they might welcome being your experimental group. Be honest and say, I'm trying something new here and would welcome the feedback.

If you have an idea for an activity but don't have the software to run it, I would encourage everyone to dig around online for a free tool. Often there is one.

For instance, if you want to run a voting pool, a Google search for "free voting poll software" produces dozens of results. This lets you try out the concept of the activity at no cost to yourself, and to get a feel for exactly what you want to get out of it.

One of the great things about running your community online is that your members can often be flexible in how they participate in an activity. Social tools, most of them free, mean that a text response is not the only option.

• Make a screen cast using a tool like Screenr.
• Narrate an explanation and make it available on SoundCloud.
• Make a presentation and upload it onto SlideShare.
• Record a video and put this onto YouTube or Vimeo.

Quite often in our enthusiasm to embrace new tools and ways of doing things, we forget about some of the staples of learning, one of which is reflection. Like many, things often make sense to me once I have reflected on them.

Encouraging community members to keep a blog, perhaps using Blogger or WordPress, is a great way to encourage this reflection. Even better, they may choose to leave it open for others to look at, and to leave comments on. That way others can learn for their experiences and also the blogger can get some constructive input.

It's not enough to give learners a discussion board and say "go discuss". Create reasons for them to go there: share links, start discussions, ask for advice, propose conundrums. Once the ball starts rolling you can take more of a back seat, but you'll probably need to do a bit of start-up encouraging.

Ingredient 6: Encourage the Outside In

There is very little to be gained by taking an insular approach to your community. Some will argue for reasons of security and privacy and, in some cases these will be valid. However, in the vast majority of cases there is no point in working in silos or isolated groups. By taking a more open approach to your community you create the conditions to grow collective intelligence.

Social media tools put us in a fantastic position to tap into individuals, groups and networks in a quick and easy way that wasn't possible before.

Exploit these possibilities by encouraging community members to tweet questions outside the community, or to start discussions on LinkedIn about your learning goals and findings. Not only will you, your community and its members prosper as a result, but those outside of the community will also benefit positively.

This culture of sharing is very much in the spirit of community and social learning. Give something to the wider world, and you'll get it back in spades.

I, along my CEO Peter Casebow, will be talking about this subject in more detail at the CIPD HRD exhibition on Thursday, 7 April 2011.

If you'd like to share some thoughts on this blog but can't see a comments box below, then view the post on this page. You'll be able to tell us what you think there.