Through Stephen Downes’ daily musings I have recently discovered two educational bloggers by the name of Dave. All three have worthwhile things to say about building communities and networks but I agree with Stephen (I think) that a community and a network are not necessarily the same thing.
In trying to envisage what I mean, I see my networks as a bit like a spider’s web, outreaching into places to capture things and briing them into my reach. My community, and I belong to more than one, is more like the anthill or a hive, with lots of interaction with other like-minded people. We communicate with each other, creating dynamic relationships and sharing ideas. We build our community, and our sense of community [which I think is a different concept] through this sharing and interaction.
The theme of my blog You Are Never Alone fits this mental picture very well. The title actually comes from the very first presentation I ever gave which was all about communities built around email discussion lists. The presentation has long since disappeared from cyber channels. In the spider’s web, the network, the spider is often alone, while in the ant hill the ant is never alone.
So the links:
- Stephen in Stephen’s Web on May 14 pointed me to Dave’s top 10 musings on the encouragement of community in Multi-User Virtual Environments. in Dave White’s TALL blog.
- Stephen’s posting from yesterday (May 23) at http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=40278 has linked me to Dave Cormier’s Building Ecologies - making room for communities and networks
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