The LTD Project Blog

These are “Eight Simple Rules for Engaging Learners” gleaned from Heather Ross (McToonish, 2007.07.16), who’d picked them up from a conference presentation by Ellen Wagner the day before:

1. Capture their attention;
2. Convince them to care;
3. Motivate them to change;
4. Give them choices;
5. Connect them with community;
6. Induce them to participate;
7. Enable opportunities to contribute; [and]
8. Make it an experience to remember.

That’s a tall order that I want to reflect upon further, possibly after tracking down details of Wagner’s presentation.

In Ongoing VCWG [Virtual Community Working Group] discussion, Carole McCulloch suggests a demonstrable difference between online communities and networks.

A community, on one hand, she suggests is “an online group where one’s absence will be noted (you will be missed).” In contrast, she suggests, a network is “an online group where one’s absence does not matter (the group will survive)” (Learning Times, Virtual Community Working Group, 2005.04.06).

Reading that led to wondering whether the WinK network is beginning to approximate a community. [Somehow, this quick post got clocked in on January 1, 1970. Since I don't recall when I posted it, I'm changing the timestamp to today (March 19, 2008).]

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Tags: communities, LearningTimes, networks, online, virtual