Thinking about how to structure the connections between the individual blogs and the course, and how to integrate Wikki’s into the online graduate research environment is making me reconsider the nature of public and private space online.
Knowledge Forum is big on public space of a particular kind, but short on individual space. The blogs give a particular kind of opportunity for recording evolving thought–they are temporal (which they can also be on KF, although they are mostly distributed in discussion threads except for the learning journals) and also linked to other conversations and sites (which they can be on KF) but in addition have the possibility of extending connections to other people from other communities. This is still a limit in KF.
Why does this matter? Hodgson and Reynolds (2005) talk about the possibilities of multiple communities in educational contexts being potentially more democratic contexts than singular communities where the implied consensus model can limit participation.
This is an interesting connection between the work I am writing about on online engagement and more cultural/social explanations of online activity.
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