This article from the Journal of Online Learning and Teaching discusses faculty and student perspectives on building online communities. Faculty and students, when surveyed, both agreed on the importance of the creation of online community, in alignment with our reading so far in Palloff & Pratt (2007). Interestingly, students ranked instructor presence much higher than faculty members did. This is important to keep in mind as a course instructor - students expect and desire comments, quick responses to questions, and timely posting of grades. As a student, I can definitely relate to that feeling - I want my instructor to be active daily in our online course, just like I am. Throughout the courses, this desire has been met to varying needs, and I have adjusted my expectations as well.
Also, I found it interesting the students and faculty also agreed on three factors, in order, that make building an online community difficult: communication, time, and participation. To a certain degree I agree with this ranking, although I must admit that for me personally, time might be a bigger challenge than communication through text only.
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The Virtual Classroom Redefined
14 years ago
I would agree, I think time is a big challenge. As a very slow reader, I feel all of my 'free' time is spent reading. Having ADHD doesn't help either, because sitting down and reading all the time gets to be difficult. It also seems that everything gets dragged on. One conversation could take days online, where as if you are face to face you could be done and move on to another discussion. To me more get accomplished in face to face meetings, but I also understand that online communication gets deeper.
ReplyDeleteFantastic article! I bookmarked and added to my CiteULike library: http://citeulike.org/user/jrhode
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