Building community… a few more steps

Just like starting out as an undergrad student in a physical university environment it takes effort to get to know fellow students, so make the effort as early as possible and it will pay dividends throughout your time there. Physical location no longer matters, the technologies for virtual communication are abundant and available to most. No doubt some work better than others depending on the requirement – synchronous v. asynchronous, written v. verbal, the list goes on. Rest assured there is a technology available for the majority of needs.

Expose yourself as fully as possible to the available communications media, not just the university communications channels. In Digital education in global context for semester 2 we set up a group Skype chat which worked well for both synchronous and asynchronous communications. Exchanges were mostly related to our studies but we had some fun too! Over on Introduction to digital game-based learning, however, they used a communications tool I hadn’t come across before called Discord. I engaged late in the semester since I wasn’t taking IDGBL and found it to be hugely social, to the point of being distracting! Thank goodness for RescueTime to keep me on the straight and narrow between studying (classed as productive) and social networking (classed as distractive although I could easily change that setting to neutral or productive and give myself a break!). I’m sure there are tons of other communications tools out there so feel free to share any you find useful in the comments.

A blog post this week from Laura Blundell on online communities is both timely and interesting since she wants to create ‘an inclusive space for lurkers’. This prompts me to reflect on some of the challenges I felt with building community during IDEL in semester one. My expectation was that everyone on the course would want to engage and participate in our new online community but that didn’t seem to be the case. As such, a sub-community of study buddies emerged where there was considerable exchange and indeed reciprocation (should that read reciprocity I wonder?) amongst us that I have no doubt will continue through the programme. In semester two, lurking wasn’t an option! In our small group of 12 everyone was included in the Skype group and for the most part interacted to some degree, thus promoting our sense of community.