I suppose I can start with a few good definitions I have heard, and then relate them back to CI 597C. First up is from my blog entry, A Sense of Virtual Community, which I made in response to a reading assignment in my Community Informatics class. The four criteria that McMillan and Chavis (1986) use to define virtual community are:

• Feelings of membership
• Feelings of influence
• Integration and fulfillment of needs
• Shared emotional connection

You may recall that I joined CI 597C late, in week 3 of the semester. Even though the group had only physically met once at that point, I felt like an outsider, like each of you were intimately acquainted. This probably had less to do an assumption of bonding over two weeks as it did with my incorrect assumption that the entire class was in the same graduate program, but nonetheless I felt like an outsider, a College of Ag student walking through the dangerous woods of the College of Education. I certainly did not experience feelings of membership, influence, or a shared emotional connection, as suggested by McMillan and Chavis.

It was not until I had a role in what would later be known as Team Tweet that I began to feel any of these things. It was my ability to find a place in this smaller community that let me feel like a member of the bigger CI597C community, when I had something to share as I recapped what Team Tweet had discussed and decided. It was when I saw a blog entry on Diffusion, Paul Revere, and Cole Camplese receive a still-standing record 11 votes that I felt I had influence over the community. I also felt my influence when I offended a member of the larger community in a blog post about Have Nots that I felt I had influence. And when members of my group told me they disagreed with that entry while also publicly defending my right to express my thoughts, I felt a shared emotional connection with them and the classmate whom I had deeply offended.

When reflecting on these moments, I realized that CI 597C is a community — for me anyway, because I engage in the community. I also realize that I am only comfortable calling CI 597C a community from mid-February on, as before that I (or it?) was lacking McMillan & Chavis’s elements of community. Then again, if these elements had already existed for other classmates, does that mean it could be a community for them but not me? This seems to relate to engagement and Wenger and those sorts of things?

Second up is Lawrence Lessig’s keynote speech at the 2008 TLT Symposium. I particularly like the part where he described mashups and YouTube as the modern equivalent of “young people together singing the songs of the day or the old songs.” Donna further expands the metaphor of a community gathering on the porch via office chairs and computers in her post, “Community: Sitting on the Front Porch.” I feel very fortunate to have had a group of intelligent, motivated people with whom I could sing the songs of the day or the old songs. The creative energy at my house in early April, when Mike, Liz, Donna and I were working on our discussion/preso for Twitter, was absolutely electric.

I have never been a part of a team that worked together so well so quickly. Each of us recognized everybody’s respective strengths, and immediately we started creating and accepting roles that suited our strengths. It must’ve been a neat scene to see: Mike has two computers open to work on video and audio, to create the Caveman transitions and other fun things we had planned. Lis is on her computer, creating wiki pages for the hands-on activity and other discussion questions we planned to ask. I was on my computer, finding and creating the images and materials we needed for our backchannel. Donna, who still refuses to acknowledge her technological prowess when around us, brought forth her mastery of academic literature by dissecting Wenger, and even found a gazillion Twitter applications for us to explore. It was a community of practice, a group of young people sitting around and creating new songs to sing and enjoying the simple act of creation. We even expanded this later in the week by meeting at Otto’s for dinner, drinks, and trivia — and two more hours of brainstorming for our discussion/preso.

Third is Becci’s question about the community membership status of Carla, the physical lurker in our class, which she raised in her post “Is Carla a member of our CI597 community?” I expanded her question to not only examine Carla’s membership in our community, but also the membership of my fiancee, other classmates’ family members/roommates, and other lurkers (hello, if you are still reading this!), in my post, “Re: ‘Peripheral’ Community Members, like Carla, Lurkers (hello!), and My Fiancee.”

Interestingly — or fittingly — this conversation happened before Twitter became a part of our lives. I imagine Becci’s question would have looked different had we been able to include micala, reginaldgolding, stevier, robin2go, and apetersen in the discussion, given the emergence of the Twitter community. I also find it interesting that Carla has not been to any classes since Becci’s post, and none of us have pointed this out. Did anyone even notice?

Finally, with relation to Twitter and community, I am preparing to end my time as a student here at Penn State. One of the options I face is moving back to Philadelphia, where I was born and raised. While I am excited at the possibility of physically rejoining friends with whom I can only communicate via phone, I am also saddened that this scenario means I will not be immediately, physically connected to people who share my interest and passion for technology and innovation, such as the PSU Twitter Community. I wonder if I will be able to create, or start, a similar Tweet Meet group in Philly. I currently only follow one person from the Philly area, and there is no connection between us other than somehow our Twitter paths crossed. In terms of trying to fit in professionally in Philadelphia, I wonder if she is part of a bigger network of Twitterers, or how to find/join that community. I know that the PSU Twitter Community will still be there to share Week In Photos, interesting articles, and ideas, but I wouldn’t be able to participate in the Tweet Meets and we have all acknowledged there is something beneficial about face to face interactions.

Funny how 4 months ago I would have laughed at the thought that Twitter would be a worry of mine in case I move to Philly, and laughed at the idea it could be such a powerful tool of community. But that is a small example of how largely my thinking and perception has changed as a result of the Spring 2008 semester.

The funny thing is, I am not referring to Barack Obama. Nor am I referring to Bill Clinton. And I am certainly not referring to Jerome Bettis – wow, PSU really was the center of the universe last week!

The speaker I am referring to is Lawrence Lessig, keynote speaker for the 2008 TLT Symposium. Lessig’s presentation, which cleverly explained and explored digital creativity and its surrounding issues to, at times, John Phillips Sousa, writing, and Latin, has opened my eyes to need for an updated, intelligent revision of copyright law. Enter Creative Commons. Fortunately (and appropriately), Lessig has made his speech available to the PSU community, though this version omits some of the brilliance of the slideshow that is playing behind him (and Read My Lips is slightly out of sync, comprising the effect). I recommend you watch it in its entirety.

While Lessig is awe-inspiring and worth more than what I have written thus far, I would like to dedicate this entry to the TLT Symposium itself and the community of which I am now a part. I am fortunate to have found my way into State College, then PSU, and then CI 597C, where I have met the awesome Cole Camplese and Scott McDonald. They have opened my eyes and mind to new resources and possibilities in the pedagogical process. One such resource was Saturday’s symposium.

I am part of Team Tweets, a group that selected Twitter as the technology to present. We selected Twitter because we had never heard of it, not quite aware of how much potential it would have. When Allan Gyorke sent his 8 Steps for the TLT Symposium that included the plea to use Twitter, we saw an opportunity for our class to actively use Twitter in their own teaching/learning experience at the symposium. I think we are all glad that we did!

Several blog entries (John, Micala, Reginald, Renegade) have been posted expressing how Twitter helped enhance their symposium experience. They, as do I, credit Twitter and the sub-community it facilitated with making this conference more meaningful to us. I, while sitting in a session on Collaborative Techniques for First Year Seminars, was able to communicate with a new Twitter-friend who was in a session on Social Networking. While we were discussing the same topic and having an active conversation, it wasn’t until about 30 minutes into the session that we realized we were in different rooms!

Later, as I was fulfilling my responsibilities at the Tag Team Table, I met several nice people who had written their Twitter names on their name tags. I added my Twitter name and we struck up a nice conversation. In fact, we have still be following each other’s tweets and I have even been following their blogs (hopefully you are following mine now, Micala and Reginald!). Twitter helped facilitate small talk — or did it eliminate the awkwardness of it?

These are just two of many observations and thoughts I have regarding Twitter and the new community to which I now belong. I need to save the rest for my discussion in class next week so that the class hears new material =)

Another emerging issue is the awkwardness of using Twitter while attending a presentation — be it lecture, session, etc. Is sacrificing eye contact with the facilitator worth the added benefits of discussing the lecture topic? For which parties is it beneficial: facilitator, participant, or both? What other challenges does a Meet & Tweet present?

These and many others are issues we need to tackle as a group in addition to focusing on the positives of Twitter. “The group” includes CI597C as well as the new community who is hopefully following our class’ blogs. Feel free to participate!

For now, I need to change my copyrights to Creative Commons licenses!

Here you go:

1. Log in to your Twitter account.

2. Go to an individual’s Twitter page (a full list is below). The address for any individual’s profile page is www.twitter.com/[username]. For example, Cole’s username is colecamplese, so his profile page is www.twitter.com/colecamplese

3. Click on “Follow”, which is under the username.

4. You are now following that person (in this example, Cole Camplese). Rinse, repeat. Well, don’t rinse, but repeat steps 2-3 for each person you want to follow. Another option is to look through any user’s “Following” list, which is located on the bottom right of their profile page. Hovering your mouse over any user icons reveals the users name. Simply click on that icon and you will be taken directly to that user’s profile page so you can complete step 3.

CI597C Classmates (and other pertinent users) on Twitter:
Here are the usernames for CI 597C classmates. To follow any user, just go to their profile page – www.twitter.com/[username]

1. The TLT Symposium feed: twitter.com/TLTSymposium
2. Me – rubywahoo
Other classmates (I won’t share real names since it is their choice to protect their identity and this blog is publicly available):
3. smcdonald
4. rookmdc
5. donnamar
6. psugal
7. teamtweet
8. dbrunner02
9. bennettulmer
10. bburns
11. jjd24
12. JeanMarieD
13. skerlin
14. micala (a new member of our community!)
15. robin2go (a new member of our community!)

Enjoy!

The first podcast features myself and Uncle Spoon, the camp’s Evening Activities Specialist, explaining our idea and plan for the podcast. Basically, we hope it helps to contribute to the blossoming online community that has developed, as described in the other post.

For now, enjoy the podcast =)

For those who don’t know, I am the Program Director for Golden Slipper Camp (GSC). Last summer, in 2007, I decided to start a GSC blog where I gave little, periodic reports on things happening at the camp (Johnny won the talent show by burping the ABC’s, or Bunk 4 won Honor Bunk for being cleanest, etc.) — it was one of my ideas to generate some excitement with parents and alumni. Little did I realize how popular the blog would be! Parents were sending emails and phone calls sharing how much they loved knowing what was going on, and that they felt more like a part of their child’s experience.

The next step was that I set up a GSC Flickr account so that we could share the photos taken by Alisa, our camp photographer. She ended up taking nearly 14,000 pictures, and I even found ways to link them to the blog, like when we had a rainy day activity that ended with a GSC mascot contest. We had each bunk create a mascot for the camp, then took their pictures and posted them on Flickr (mascot picture pages) where families could view them and vote through the blog. We ended up crowning the winning bunk at the camp — and reporting the winner on the blog — a week later.

As soon as the summer ended, I started uploading GSC videos onto YouTube and embedding them into the blog, further generating interest from campers, alumni, parents/families, staff, and club members. I have 40 more hours of skits, songs, and fun things to upload, but my miniDV camera is on the fritz (Tweet or email me if you have one I can borrow!). One piece of advice if you do something similar for one of your organizations: set up a separate YouTube account! I have to be careful now that my identity is directly linked to the camps’ — I can’t upload some of the videos I made as an undergrad (PG-13 rated language or plots) or display my favorites for fear that a camper will see them and it will open a can of worms.

Since the summer ended, I have been using the blog to share news that is passed on to me. At this point it primarily contains announcements of things happening at the camp, contests, alumni marriages, births, and engagements. I hope to start including camper news (Honor Roll on report cards, awards won, graduations and college acceptances, etc.).

The final two pieces of this are an exploding alumni social networking site (400 members in 3 weeks!) and a brand new podcast (UPDATE 2/2/2009: Here is a link to the full menu of GSC podcasts created during the summer of 2008). I realize that this is long, but just wanted to share. It is interesting to be involved in the comprehensive creation of a brand new community over the past 10 months, and I look forward to the future implications of the technology and this class.

Phew! Sorry for the length! I am very interested in having further conversations about this, and look forward to helping others enact similar efforts.

This article, and many other community and internet resources, can be also found at our class website.

The introduction lists some existing definitions for “communities” in current literature (great list of references!) and examines how these definitions might apply to virtual communities. One framework, by McMillian and Chavis (1986), is:

• Feelings of membership
• Feelings of influence
• Integration and fulfillment of needs
• Shared emotional connection

McMillian and Chavis also proposed a theoretical model that specifies the origin of each of the above dimensions and also how they interrelate to produce sense of community.

The article also describes the difference between a settlement, or neighborhood, and a community — in both the ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ worlds. Finally, the article shares the results of the authors’ analysis of a virtual settlement, MSN, and in doing so identify some key characteristics provided by the members as reasons for why MSN is a community. The authors also share some interesting thoughts on identity. Below is a quick overview of the reasons most commonly provided by members. The authors elaborate and define each reason:

• Recognition
• Identification
• Support
• Relationship
• Emotional Attachment
• Obligation

Again, the article is uploaded at the beginning of this entry or available on the class website. Happy reading!

-Blanchard, A.L., & Markus, M.L. (2002). Sense of virtual community- Maintaining the experience of belonging. Proceedings of the 35th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
-McMillian, D.W., & Chavis, D.M. (1986). Sense of community: A definition of theory. Journal of Community Psychology, 14, 6-23.

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?

The ideas behind Elements of Diffusion are very similar to the ideas behind Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. (while that link takes you to the book on google, you can read about the book in Gladwell’s blog). In the Peruvian Village, it is suggested that Nelida’s attempt to diffuse the technology of water boiling failed because she only focused on those similar to her, or social outcasts. She did not target influential members of the village. This is very closely related to Gladwell’s first rule of successful epidemics, which suggests that tipping points – which are very much a part of diffusion and innovation – rely on certain types of people to make them successful: Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. When Rogers suggests that Nelida would have been more successful if she had target influential village members, which he calls village opinion leaders, who could activate networks to spread the message, he is very much talking about the same three types of people that Gladwell says are important.

A case of note, from Gladwell’s book, which shows the difference that targeting the right people can make: We’ve all heard of Paul Revere and know that he warned John Hancock and Samuel Adams of the approaching British Army. But fewer people are familiar with William Dawes. Dawes was the other rider sent with Revere that night. According to Gladwell, Revere, a Connector, notified influential members of the communities on his route; Dawes, like Nelida, employed a less effective approach by notifying many people but not many influential people.

Clearly, the lesson is that spreading the word, or an innovation, is more dependent on the types of people you know in the community than what you know or how good the innovation is. I experience this every summer at my summer camp; key staff members or campers rise emerge, and any successful movement through the camp usually gathers speed and momentum once it reaches these people. The key, though, is that these community leaders don’t have to just receive the information; they have to buy into it!

Cole is pretty passionate about the potential benefits and opportunities that arise from using blogs, podcasts, and other web 2.0 technologies in educational environments. Penn State supports him, or else I imagine he wouldn’t have his job and the resources to put together the many projects he is behind. I have bought in whole-heartedly and feel lucky to be involved in the early part of this movement. My impression, however, is that this innovation and its possibilities has yet to spread through the rest of PSU. Is Cole targeting the right people: PSU’s version of influential village members, and its Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen?

Will Cole be Paul Revere, or William Dawes?

M* said that he is very grateful for email, cell phones, and text messaging, because it allows him to communicate with his friends at any time and from virtually anywhere in the world. Like most of, he uses the three methods to make plans to meet with his friends. There is one friend in particular with whom he meets regularly. They establish a time and place to meet via email or phone. If one of them is going to be late, they use the phone or texting to notify the other. Finally, they can enjoy their time together in piece, thanks to technology.

But wait! M* also pointed out that he and his friend spend some of their time together answering phone calls or responding to text messages; essentially, they are having conversations with other people who are not physically present. Sometimes, while meeting with one friend, M* has used text messaging to coordinate a meeting with another friend. Basically, many of his meetings (and many of mine, too) are spent thinking about other people. Has technology brought us together, or has technology provided a way for us to not be alone when contacting others?

Oddly enough, the latest issue of Wired Magazine (February 2008) has an essay on this subject, too, with interesting points and study results that may surprise you. I thought this article would fit in nicely with our class theme of Community.

If you’ll excuse me, I am going to text Wired to see if they will pay me for these endorsements…