Hello hello!
As this week’s syllabus is already the last one dealing with content for the video, it’s time to look back at the previous lessons and reflect on what I’ve learned so far.
source
When I started this course my technological knowledge was not really existing, but after hours, of confusion and also confusiasm, learning about technological stewardship, online tools and structure, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, marketing, the communities out there and much more - I’d say that I know pretty much about this issue now (I’d give my online-community-knowledge now a 6 on a scale from 1 to 10, as there’s still a huge terrain to discover and always a little more space to improve ;-) ).
But the main thing that I’ve learned about online communities is, how online communities influence the daily life. They’re not only nice for the daily portion of entertainment, but also for work, to connect and reach out for specialists, or join an online community to discuss a certain issue and get other peoples’ opinion. So online communities have a, for me, unexpected wide use and different purposes, which can be really helpful and supporting, but also, when it comes to sharing the beloved kitten videos, a little bit distracting.
I also found out, what I have to pay attention to, when it comes to designing an online community: the most important part is to encourage people to contribute and join the community, as well as to convince them to be proactive and ask, if they have any questions. (Remember my blogpost „wanted - online tools for dummies“? - I really had to laugh when I found this, while doing my research about encouraging people to participate to an online community!! )
Furthermore it is very important to keep the online space as simple as possible, like having an easy to use commenting or chatting tool, a good structure, not too much information per site and a clear and „primitive“, but still professional layout.
As we’ve now gathered so much information on online communities, I’d like to spend some more time applying this knowledge, so as to contribute and become an active part of an online community.
As Nancy explained in our last hangout - there is the periphery (ca. 90% of the community) who are just observing the discussion, while the other 10%, called „the core“ are producing the main content of it. ( I think this is called the „legitimate peripheral participation“). And that’s what I want to do next: get more effective and active, find communities I can join and be a part of, with the target to make the step from the periphery to the core, because as I’ve learned in the last month - there’s a lot of useful stuff out there, just waiting for you to come and pick it up.
so, what are we waiting for? - let’s go!
Thanks for reading!
