Task 3
An online group that i looked into was the Hollyoaks forum page:
http://www.hollyoaksforum.com
This site gives the idea of an online community of whom all share the same common interest that it of course the soap Hollyoaks. There are a lot of different groups to this forum and many different discussion baords.
It appears as though the people in these groups know each other through this group as they comment to each other quite informally and in a friendly manner.
In my opinion, this is community in practice, it is simply online rather than being face to face, Wenger's theory concentrated heavily on the face to face concept of communities in practice. I think there is a big difference between having an online community to being part of one that occurs in a face to face enviroment. You have to use your imagination a lot more considering you do not get to see who you are talking to. Also, you cannot see facial expressions or any other forms of emotion, people are simply just using words to put across their views.
However, I do believe that these online forums are still representing an online community and it would be invalid to assume that because they are online and people do not fully know each other, that it is not classed as a community in practice.
Everyone on the Hollyoaks site hold a common interest, and one that they all have knowledge and views about. There are different forums on the site, that lead off to talk about things other than Hollyoaks.
For example, in one discussion board where the subject is, 'general chat'- there are a few topics in that forum, one that I picked up on had nothing to do with Hollyoaks, but was in fact about the recent Earthquake. This justs shows how these people are although literally anonymous, still feel comfortable discussing everyday topics with each other. Therefore I believe it is arguably an online community of Practice.
What do others think? Is a site such as this classed as an online community?
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3 comments:
RINCY
hmmm i think it could possibly be a online copf. Everyone seems to be relaxed with each other and can discuss anything including topics featured in hollyoaks as well as topics in general relating to everday life.
Maybe in this case you might want to consider some of Wenger's criteria for CofP - maybe the shared goals? Or the joint enterprise? does such a group as you describe have these. Sometimes such goals and shared enterprise aren't very obvious at the beginning, but they grow through association with the community. Wenger seems to suggest that it's always the other way round, but I'm not so sure.
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