Virtual Communities
Feb 12th, 2012 by Michele Brannon-Hamilton
After completing my UBC master’s degree, I was able to take one of my projects and turn it into a reality. I’m currently designing online student services for a local college. I’m going to use this blog to write about my journey through the design and implementation processes.
A Sense of Community
It didn’t matter that I lived in Ontario and went to school in BC. I still felt like part of the UBC community because I had connections with people who made me feel like I belonged. I could log in to my Master of Educational Technology (MET) courses each day and know I would find friends, mentors, classmates, and instructors there. I was able to discuss, connect, collaborate, create, and belong to a safe, caring community.
At first, the newness of online learning was overwhelming because there was so much to do and so many posts to read but it soon became apparent that I wasn’t in a race to do it all and there were always people there to help. In fact, logging in became addictive because I didn’t want to miss a thing. This is the feeling I wanted to create at my own college.
Our College Campus
Currently, the people at our college create a similar feeling on campus. Staff and students like being there because there is a sense of community apparent in the hallways. I wanted to bring that community online to reach the students who couldn’t be on campus or who couldn’t access our services in a face to face environment.
The Idea
If I could design a virtual community for our students, we could provide a place for students to interact, connect, and collaborate with our staff, other students and our resources. I would use constructivist principles and base the design on educational pedagogy. I could almost hear one of my professors saying, “pedagogy before technology.”
Once the idea started, the project soon grew beyond my expectations but first I had to do an environmental scan to determine if the project was really feasible. I used the notes from ETEC 520, Planning and Managing to figure out my next steps.
Next: the Environmental Scan