Building Virtual Communities: Learning and Change in Cyberspace

by Edited by K. Ann Renninger , Wesley Shumar

• ISBN13: 9780521780759
• ISBN10: 0521780756
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-07-08
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Building Virtual Communities examines how learning and cognitive change are fostered by online communities. Contributors to this volume explore this question by drawing on their different theoretical backgrounds, methodologies, and personal experience with virtual communities. Each chapter discusses the different meanings of the terms community, learning, and change. Case studies are included for further clarification. Together, these chapters describe the building out of virtual communities in terms that are relevant to theorists, researchers, and practitioners. The chapters provide a basis for thinking about the dynamics of Internet community building. This includes consideration of the role of the self or individual as a participant in virtual community, and the design and refinement of technology as the conduit for extending and enhancing the possibilities of community building in cyberspace. Building Virtual Communities will interest educators, psychologists, sociologists, and researchers in human-computer interaction.

Author Biography

K. Ann Renninger is a developmental and educational psychologist at Swarthmore College Wesley Shumar is a cultural anthropologist at Drexel University

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures	ix
Contributors	xi
Series Foreword	xv
Preface and Acknowledgments	xvii
K. Ann Renninger
Wesley Shumar
Foreword: Virtual Communities for Learning and Development -A Look to the Past and Some Glimpses into the Future	xxi
Michael Cole
Introduction: On Conceptualizing Community	1	(20)
Wesley Shumar
K. Ann Renninger
Part One Types of Community
The Mystery of the Death of MediaMOO: Seven Years of Evolution of an Online Community	21	(13)
Amy Bruckman
Carlos Jensen
Female Voices in Virtual Reality: Drawing Young Girls into an Online World	34	(26)
Ann Locke Davidson
Janet Ward Schofield
Community Building with and for Teachers at The Math Forum	60	(36)
K. Ann Renninger
Wesley Shumar
Learning in the Virtual Community Depends upon Changes in Local Communities	96	(33)
Beverly Hunter
Part Two Structures and Community
Evolution of an Online Education Community of Practice	129	(30)
Mark S. Schlager
Judith Fusco
Patricia Schank
Building Social Networks Via Computer Networks: Creating and Sustaining Distributed Learning Communities	159	(32)
Caroline Haythornthwaite
Mask and Identity: The Hermeneutics of Self Construction in the Information Age	191	(24)
Dorian Wiszniewski
Richard Coyne
WISE Learning Communities: Design Considerations	215	(34)
Alex J. Cuthbert
Douglas B. Clark
Marcia C. Linn
Part Three Possibilities for Community
Reflexive Modernization and the Emergence of Wired Self Help	249	(20)
Roger Burrows
Sarah Nettleton
Understanding the Life Cycles of Network-Based Learning Communities	269	(24)
James Levin
Raoul Cervantes
Learning in Cyberspace: An Educational View of Virtual Community	293	(28)
D. Jason Nolan
Joel Weiss
Finding the Ties That Bind: Tools in Support of a Knowledge-Building Community	321	(34)
Christopher Hoadley
Roy D. Pea
Afterword: Building Our Knowledge of Virtual Community: Some Responses	355	(13)
David Hakken
Afterword: Building, Buying, or Being There: Imagining Online Community	368	(9)
Steven G. Jones
Index	377