Category: Virtual Communities

Welcome to my Educational Technology Blog. I began this blog as a reflective assignment in my master’s degree. It was a place to explore and write about how educational technology could be used in educational institutions. My research in this field has led me to an interest in virtual communities and online student services.

Two years ago, I turned my research into a reality with the creation of a Virtual Learning Commons for a local college in Ontario. I designed an online community that included writing services, learning skills, math services, peer tutoring, and English Conversation. These services include live chat, Twitter, online appointments, videos, blogs, learning modules, and discussion boards.

Today, I work at the University of Waterloo, Canada, as an Online Learning Consultant designing online courses but I still have an interest in developing and promoting online student services. As the interest in online learning continues to grow, I believe there is even more of a need to create online services to help students learn anytime, anywhere. We now have the ability to create a community where students can interact with content, experts, and each other.

I’d like to share my ideas with you and I welcome any comments or suggestions. Please read my earlier posts for a background in my project. The topics are as follows:

• Virtual Community
• Environmental Scan
• Building a Virtual Community
• Scope of the Project

Next: Researching Best Practices

It’s important to determine where your project begins and ends. Will your community encompass the whole school or be limited to one area?

You may want to envision the larger picture but then break the project into smaller, more manageable pieces. I wanted to create online services that included all service areas of the college and then connect them to online academic communities. However, this would take a lot of time and resources. Instead, I created a three year plan that could be obtained realistically.

The first year included researching the best practices of other educational institutions and designing a virtual learning commons community. The community design included developing virtual writing, math, learning skills, tutoring, and learning skills services. I proposed creating these services over a two year period.

Although the college has many more service areas, the scope of the initial project would include only the learning commons area. At the end of the project, I would write a new proposal to create communities in other service areas including Aboriginal services, the book store, and career services.

After the first year of research, my proposal, including the scope, was well received by the college. However, we collectively decided that implementation should be changed from one year to two years. It was important to bring the students what they already expected and with technology changing rapidly, we didn’t want to be left behind.

The new plan included developing all areas of the learning commons in the first half of the year, and moving to include the other service areas during the second half of the first year. At the end of the year, I proposed creating a Virtual Community department that would allow me to expand the communities beyond implementation.

Outlining your scope is important because a project can grow quickly and without a timeline, it can appear unrealistic. Create a vision that includes the larger picture and then break it down into realistic attainable goals. Build from small successes but be flexible. Technology changes quickly and you want to meet the students where they are when they are ready.

Next: Researching Best Practices