Creating and Sustaining Community in a Virtual World

Background

Virtual communities, or online communities, are used when individuals within a personal or professional group choose to interact with each other via the Internet. It does not necessarily mean that there is a strong bond among the members as is the case with a face-to-face group. Interaction in a virtual community takes place through email, chat rooms, synchronous learning sessions, etc. An email distribution list may have hundreds of members and the communication which takes place may be merely informational (questions and answers are posted), but members may remain relative strangers and the membership turnover rate could be high. This is in line with the liberal use of the term “community.”

It is useful to examine definitions of what a learning community is meant to be. According to Chang (2003) a learning community is ‘a group that shares ideas and information with all members of the community’. It is also a place where spontaneous learning and active knowledge construction takes place by the individual learners within the community. Chang continues to define this community as ’a virtual social organization of learners who share knowledge and experiences, exchange information as well as collaboratively solve problems in the pursuit of a common learning objective or interest’ (p.28).

Thomas Sergiovanni (1993) defines community as ’a collection of individuals who are bonded together by natural will and who are binded to a set of shared ideas and ideals’ (p.xvi). The members of the community have sought membership into this particular group. Communities don’t happen randomly but are systematically organized and expanded.