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Participating in Online Communities for Mutual Support

Friday, April 26, 2013 21 Comments

Why a “Digital Literacy” Introduction?

by Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
See UPDATE 4/27 below

I recently received an invitation from Hazel Owen, a woman introducing herself to me for the first time after her first visit to ADDandSoMuchMore.com.

She became aware of me only because I had “liked” an article written by her (hold that thought – it will relate to unwritten “reciprocity norms” when you read the upcoming article).

Hazel is an education advocate who hosts an online community from New Zealand (which explains some differences in slang and spelling you will find in articles written by her).

I found her voice, her background and her community impressive and fascinating, so I accepted her invitation to blog occasionally on her platform.

In THIS article, she is “returning the favor,” offering us some information I believe our entire community sorely needs — a beginners’ explanation of some of the “rules” of this whole “internet communities” thing! In other words, an introduction to the concept of Digital Literacy (dialogue with her in the comments section if you have questions – this lady KNOWs!)

Internet Alzheimer’s 🙂

Regular readers of ADDandSoMuchMore.com are most likely aware of my own technical challenges and frustrations. Most days I feel like a dolt who used to be on top of things.

Although I was once a computer professional myself, it was MANY years ago – decades that might as well be centuries in internet time. The computer world moves rapidly, so practically nothing from those years offers me any help what-so-ever!!

In fact, after almost four years “off-line” as the result of some personal and health challenges, it seems now that my first instincts about how to do practically anything online are almost always wrong-wrong-wrong.

To make matters even worse, the people I asked (even paid!) for help didn’t seem to get it that I was unable to understand even their explanations, such was the depth of my cluelessness.

I had no IDEA how to “work” the software they suggested I download
to “help.”

Other than “scroll” and a few other basic words that meant exactly
what they used to mean, I was almost totally unfamiliar with the
vocabulary they employed as they endeavored to enlighten me.
Sheesh!

Oh goodie, more “in-order-to’s” to master . . . must I now give up bathing
and sleeping to fit it all in?

Hazel to the Rescue!

It turns out, you don’t NEED to be a technical guru to participate in the developing trend toward global connection.

There are a few basics you do need to know to keep from stepping in – um – trouble by violating the social expectations of the rest of Planet Internet.

After that, however, you can develop your “online literacy” at a pace most of us over here on Planet ADD will be able to manage without giving up basic self-care.

And now, without further ado, H-E-R-E-‘ s Hazel!

EthosBanner

UPDATE 4/28: Be SURE to read & respond to Hazel’s offer in the Comments section below –
we have a GURU ready-willing-and-ABLE to help us out!

How do you mutually support each other
in online communities?
Some reflections and suggestions

guest post from Hazel Owen

© licensed (BY NC ND) flickr photo by re-Verse: http://flickr.com/photos/re_verse/32163352/

Personally and professionally, I don’t know what I would do without being a member of online communities.

I am constantly challenged to think and reflect, as well as affirmed or guided in some of the ideas I am developing.

On the social side, I have had the pleasure and privilege of ‘meeting’ a vast variety of people from around the world, including Madelyn, who are incredibly generous with their time, and with sharing their thinking.

You might be saying to yourself,

“But I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said,”
“I don’t have time,” or
“What if I say something wrong?”

I know I had similar concerns before I started getting involved in online communities.

So why might you want to get involved?

In July 2011 in her blog post Creating Community Together, Madelyn threw down a challenge that read as follows:

“Let’s work together for the mutual good of our communities and our planet – becoming resources for each other because it is simply the right thing to do – meaning the thing that will create the kind of world we want – a world that works for EVERYONE.”

You may have already taken up her challenge and are comfortably participating in and contributing to online communities. But you may also be sitting on the fence and not feeling very comfortable about jumping into the online community spaces where you may feel you need to build your digital literacy skills before joining the conversations.

In this blog post I would like to describe what I mean by digital literacy skills, give a brief overview why your voice is important in online communities, and finally, I’ll provide a grab-bag guide to getting involved.

Why online communities?

Over a period of about 13 years I had become increasingly interested in how human beings interact and ‘learn’ in online spaces, especially when they are offered opportunities to become **immersed. An immersive environment enables people to experience a variety of approaches and ideas, at the same time as exploring them intellectually.

During this period the Internet grew in popularity as a place for formal and informal learning, and hardware and software became more affordable. I have become increasingly excited by the potential of eLearning and Mobile Learning (mLearning). Being able to connect is providing a range of ways to co-construct understanding, to develop creative problem solving skills, and to become more culturally aware. This, however, entails a paradigm shift away from content to a greater focus on mutual support and synergistic thinking, as well as an increasing requirement for individuals to possess digital literacy skills.

**Immersive digital environment / experience: Adapted from gaming environments, references to immersive experiences illustrate instances where an online CoP member becomes immersed in the ‘narrative’ of the community and its interactions. As such, the member feels as though they are part of an online ‘universe’, where they have the option to create and design the spaces (Adams, 2004).

What is digital literacy?

Digital literacy can be broadly categorised in three distinct skills sets (Reynard, 2009).

The first skill set is being able to navigate the Internet to locate and evaluate resources.
The second skill set includes being able to create, repurpose, share and comment on resources hosted on the Internet.

These skills usually require some sort of account creation or membership to a community (for example, YouTube), as well as awareness of rights to use and re-use digital objects. Associated activities may include the sharing of links, images, or commenting on blogs.

To move to this stage of development is to move from the consumption of digital resources to the creation or adoption of an online identity.

The third skill set involves the co-creation of ideas online and the active cultivation of an online identity. This requires a sophisticated level of digital literacy skills, whereby participants make sense of existing knowledge and reinterpret it in a way that fits within their existing knowledge framework, thereby, disconnecting, and reconnecting “knowledge fragments through knowledge creation” (Littlejohn, 2011, Para. 3). This sense-making will often occur within learning ecologies, online communities and networks (Siemens, 2003).

Healthy, established online communities tend to have members who have developed mutual trust and respect, and are reasonably confident in their digital literacy skills.

Other members, who remain readers of conversations and content (sometimes known as ‘lurkers’) are likely to have developing digital literacies, less confidence in their online persona. That is not to say one is necessarily directly related to the other, but rather to highlight that full participation, which leads to an immersive experience, requires digital literacies development.

Why your voice is important

I have explored online communities in a variety of situations, prior to taking on the position of national coordinator in New Zealand of a pilot project to develop a Virtual Professional Learning and Development (VPLD) Model (initiated in October 2009 by the Ministry of Education, who also funded the project).

My initial experiences were in line with the current research findings of the time (e.g. Hallam, 2008; McDermott, 2002) – but it was one thing reading about the challenges and another thing experiencing them!

I found that a vibrant online community depended on establishing a balance between too little and too much communication, between facilitated and organic activities/contributions, and between confident and ‘developing’ contributors.

I discovered that, with encouragement and support, members could be mentored through the process of developing digital literacy skills. However, many members had not participated in an online community before, and were not aware of the level of engagement required to really get the ball rolling, so community enthusiasm waxed and waned.

I was frequently disappointed that I was the only one to respond to a post or discussion, or that responses were superficial.

Without a reasonable level of engagement from online community members, there was little sense of a mutual support network, and in turn, of their voices influencing developments and policy.

Nevertheless, slowly but surely, membership, momentum and the quality and quantity of contributions grew over the next 3½ years.

Some of the challenges

Time and opportunities are needed for the more confident members to ‘model’ some online community building behaviours, so that other members are able to build an identity within a newly formed group. Individual participants also face challenges that include (but are not limited to):

unfamiliarity with netiquette and notions of reciprocity in an online space
uncertainty of purpose
lack of confidence in the value of their contributions
workload and other life commitments (which impact the level of community engagement)
little or no peer support
lack of access to appropriate technology and connectivity.

A grab-bag guide to getting involved in online communities

One of the things you need to do, if you want to get involved, is join a community. First you’ll need to find an online community that is formed around a topic that interests you. This could be through recommendations from friends or colleagues, or through a simple online search.

Once you have found a likely community take a trip around – set by 30 or 40 minutes to dip into all the spaces on the community site, and get a feel for the tone of the conversations.

If you don’t like the tone, don’t join the community.
Don’t give up though – find another one that seems to be more your ‘fit’.

And then, once you have joined:

Set up an online profile.

Start by considering what other members of this specific community would be interested in; keep it short and sweet initially. And don’t share anything you wouldn’t be comfortable sharing with someone if you met them face-to-face for the first time.

Upload an image to your profile; it doesn’t have to be of you – it can be your dog, your cat, your garden, your car, or something meaningful to you.

An image helps people feel as though they are ‘getting to know you’ because, as humans, we are pretty visual creatures.

Within two weeks of joining the community, find a blog post, resource, or online discussion that resonates with you in some way and ‘like’ it.

Within one month of joining keep your eyes open for a blog post, resource, or online discussion that resonates with you in some way and leave a comment.

In no longer than two months, locate a resource you think is interesting or useful, and share it with the community.

You only need to add a couple of sentences about why the resource caught your attention.

And don’t get disheartened if you don’t get any responses…other folks are going through the same online journey as you 🙂

LAST COMMENT

So NOW you know that if you found this information helpful, “reciprocity” means you INTERACT, right?

So THAT means that you do one or more of the following —

You:

click “like” on the page (from the TOP on the WordPress Menubar for WordPress.com visitors – anyone can “like” at the bottom, near my tiny photo below, where I clicked to “like”)

share it on one of your social networks, like FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc. (at the bottom of the article, on THIS blog – placement can vary by blog)

leave a comment (keep scrolling down for comments – AND you can reply to comments from others to get a full-fledged conversation going), or

rate it five stars, found at the top – you’re pretty great about that already, btw!

As always, the goal is to affirm and acknowledge, not to “vote” or argue — so keep things totally positive as you interact, even if your point of view is completely different as you speak your truth ~ mgh

References

Adams, E. (2004). Postmodernism and the Three Types of Immersion. Retrieved December 26, 2007.

Hallam, G. (2008). The Australian ePortfolio project and the opportunities to develop a community of practice. Paper presented at the Ascilite 2008: Where are you in the landscape of educational technology? Retrieved December 20, 2008