Creating a Sense of Community

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Creating a Sense of Community

• by Chris Jones
• Arizona Western College
• Yuma, AZ
• cjones_at_azwestern.edu

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What is sense of community?

• Individual members have a feeling of
• Belonging to a group
• Sharing experiences
• Being a valued member

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Why create a sense of community?

• Participants are
• more likely to contribute synchronously and
  asynchronously
• more comfortable about about speaking during a
  chat session

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How do we create a sense of community?

• 7 of the possibilities

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Nurture trust

• Make clear that all contributions/ responses are
  valuable
• Provide positive feedback
• Encourage risk taking

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Open-ended questions

• If participation lags, try to restart it by
  giving participants something to comment on
• Refocus discussions by posing a question that
  brings participants back to the subject rather
  than being critical

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Encourage common goals and interests

• Whats the purpose of this community? For
  example
• Discussions about assigned videos or readings
• Practicing oral or written communication in
  English
• Learning to use free web software
• Using a particular software package

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Post photos

• Photos can be posted to a Yahoo Group,
  Blackboard, or any kind of web page
• They provide a face to go with a written or
  spoken voice
• Gradually, participants develop a sense of
  different personalities by associating names,
  photos, and comments

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Photos posted to our Yahoo Group site Enhancing
. . .

• Examples of PCI participants

David
Geoff
Annavaleria
Jeannette Cindy
Dafne
Richard
10
Share some personal information

• Family
• Work or job history
• For students major field of study or career
  goals
• Hobbies

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A sample introduction

• Lisa Hima
• I have been working for the Defense Language
  Institute English Language Center at Lackland Air
  Force Base in San Antonio, TX for at least 15
  years. For the last four years I have been
  working at the Ministry of Defense in the Slovak
  Republic in the capacity of advisor in matters of
  language training

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Both photos and intros.

• This is the participant page for the 2004 EV
  Online Session on Becoming a Webhead
  http//www.geocities.com/bawebhead/participants.ht
  ml

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Frequent summaries

• If people are expected to contribute to a course
  or session on a regular basis, provide frequent
  summaries
• Good review for everyone
• An update for those who werent able to keep up

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A summary from the Becoming a Webhead EV Online
session

• This weekly summary shows photos of the
  contributors as well as their comments to the
  Messages in Yahoo Groups
• http//www.geocities.com/bawebhead/week4thread.htm
  l

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Post a chat log

• Tapped In chat log also from the Becoming a
  Webhead session http//www.geocities.com/bawebhea
  d/logisabel.html
• Photos from a Yahoo Messenger chat log

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Part of chat log transcript for 2/25/04 of
Becoming a Webhead

• Isabel would like to see Karen's brand new first
  Web pageIsabelP can you give the URL?TeresaD
  for karen's page?AgataZ says Hello to
  everyoneIsabelP yesKarenGar for the webhead
  "ants"TeresaD http//lajaulavira.tripod.com/baw/
  tutorial.htmlLeahS joined the room.TeresaD
  this is the second page

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Create blogs

• An example of student Blogger blog
  http//ali-aaa.blogspot.com/
• Vance provides a tutorial on doing this at
  http//www.homestead.com/prosites-vstevens/files/e
  fi/blogger_tutorial.htm
• Comparison of some free blogs http//ed-edublogs.g
  su.edu/admin2/static/EV/FreeWeblogSoftwareforESL.
  htm

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Create a Yahoo Group

• The Y Group for this session at
  http//groups.yahoo.com/group/pci2004enhancing/
• Where do you go to start a Y Group?
  http//groups.yahoo.com/start
• What are the different categories in a Y Group
  used for? http//help.yahoo.com/help/groups

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Make your own web site

• Use Yahoo ID for a free web site at geocities.com
• Netscape Composer, a free wysiwyg (what you see
  is what you get) web page builder
• Yahoo! PageBuilder http//geocities.yahoo.com/v/pb
  .html
• Others Macromedia Dreamweaver, MS FrontPage

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How do we create a sense of community?

• Nurture trust
• Pose open-ended questions
• Encourage common goals and interests
• Post photos of community members
• Share some personal information
• Post frequent summaries
• Create blogs and/or a web site

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Meeting face to face

• When you finally meet the members of your
  community face to face, you feel like youre
  meeting an old friend for the first time!