Assessment Task - Part II

Introduction 

This report continues the learning journey of immersion and participation in my chosen learning community the Travelzine. It includes my observations, analysis, experiences and links to research on learning communities. 

1.0 The community, the technological environment and participants

 TheTravelzine is a moderated, non-commercial group dedicated to the exchange of travel tips and experiences. We share information about our countries and cultures and answer one another’s travel questions while making friends around the globe D and L Freedman (2008, para 1).

The Travelzine is hosted on Yahoo Groups which is a standard online asynchronous platform where members can send and receive messages to community members and engage in threaded dialogue through the moderated forum. The site also enables synchronous chat through instant messenger. In addition, it does have the functionality to be a simple listserv where people can send and receive emails pertaining to the topics in the discussion forum without accessing the website. In the forum, members can access web links, send email, participate in polls and can access travel database files which have been created or approved by the moderator.

The site has the following five main areas: 

Messages: Where the main activity in taking place via moderated threaded messages 

Files: Database of files created or approved by the moderators

Links: A diverse range of links to external travel sites

Polls:  Travel related polls set by the moderators

Photos: An area to share photos which remains curiously empty

All content in the community is approved by a group of seven moderators (four from Canada, two from the United States and one from Australia) who share the task of moderating the site and each post. As first described by Kim (2000), the group of moderators function as ‘elders’ of the community who regularly post to share their knowledge and influence the culture of the community (Bishop 2007). The site features searchable archived threaded discussions. This is an important feature when planning a holiday as you can view years of discussion on your desired holiday destination. The site also has links back to a parent website called The Travelzine.com, the original portal which provides more detailed information about the owners, travel links, access to email and Yahoo Group’s Travelzine.  

The community currently has 1507 members and there are no statistics on the site to summarise the participants. Therefore the following description of the participants is based on my observations and an analysis of a sample of seventy six members who have joined the community since I joined in March 2008. The analysis included country of origin, sex, reason for joining and other evidence of self-disclosure relating to identity.  

- Nationalities represented: USA, South Africa,  Canada, Turkey, Ghana, Indonesia, Oman, Singapore, Ethiopia, Pakistan, India, South Africa, UK, Australia, Malaysia and China

- The top three countries comprise of USA, Canada and UK

- Strong evidence of  “travel experts” such as expats, retired and current travel industry personal

- Sex - 60% female, 40% male

- Limited self disclosure about ages and occupations. Of those who did disclose there was strong evidence of retirees from North America (this was supported by photo evidence in the splinter groups which organised face to face get togethers)

- A psychographic profile would include:

a) frequent and savvy travellers

b) altruistic reasons for sharing their travel experiences

c) people seeking legitimate, non commercial and authentic travel experiences.

2.0 Description of the learning events/activities  

As identified in Task 1 Bandura’s ‘Model of Processes Governing Observational Learning’ (Cornford 1999) can provide a framework for analysis and assist with identifying the behaviours, learning events and activities that are occurring in the community. 

Motivation: The discussion threads highlight the initial reasons why people join which include finding an online social space to share travel stories and tips. The most popular reason for joining includes: 

1. Seeking travel advice and travel tips
2. Sharing own travel experience with others
3. Sharing information with like minded people
4. Making friends – social aspect which sets up an opportunity to learn through creating relationships

In this initial stage the participants learn through self disclosure (Saunders 1999). We learn where a new member comes from and what they aim to contribute and hope to learn from the group. In this stage it is important that new members are seen as being legitimate in their motivations and conform to the group norms of friendship, a genuine desire to share and possessing a love of travel.   

Modelling: The main moderator is the most significant role model and instigates and participates in discussion threads. Her authority over the group is legitimised as the owner of the Travelzine and through creation of resources and archived travelogues on destinations which she shares with the group. Her advice is sought by members as they address posts which start “Dear Linda and fellow Ziners”.  

‘When newcomers arrive at your community, they’ll look around for clues that tell them how to behave appropriately, and they’ll view anyone who commands attention and respect as someone to emulate’ (Kim 2000, para 2).

There are both implicit and explicit rules that govern the community. The explicit rules governing posting in the forum are emailed to you on joining and resent to you if a breech occurs. The implicit rules include positive and helpful tone of language in posts and an understanding of the level of trust and respect that is expected within the community. The community has a genuine suspicion of commercial travel sites and a desire to ensure that the Travelzine is a safe haven away from spam and flogging, a prevalent online travel practice which I have covered in more detail in my weblog.    

Retention Process: As stated in task one it is difficult to directly observe the participant’s cognitive processes however the use of significant archive lists provides an easily accessible online memory and there is evidence of people making travel purchases based on advice given by community members.  

Production Process:  There is significant evidence of the use of learning conversations with the main learning activities focused on feedback in the travel context.  There is disclosure about what people have noticed about something in their travels and the sense they have made of it (evidence in posts and archived travel journals). There is also evidence of social comparison learning behaviours as described by Saunders (1999). For example, a post I observed included a pre-trip checklist. The first list was generated by one of the moderators and it was subsequently compared with others. The post was in the voice of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours”.    

3.0 My role as a learner/participant in the learning activities  

I was impressed that the group was so active and had an established history of ten years. There are at least one to five new members a day and an average of three hundred posts a month. As I was seeking a social learning experience I was pleased to see the amount of personal experiences and the genuine effort to share travel stories through dialogue. On joining I was keen to explore the site in detail to get an understanding of how to use the technology and how the content would add to my learning experience. Then I started participating in legitimate peripheral participation (lurking) and reading the content of the posts to get an idea of the community, who it comprised of and the social norms and etiquette. My first post did not make it to the forum as I obviously had not read the rules. I dared to welcome a new member who was interested in travelling to Australia. I quickly learnt by the personal email sent to me by the moderator that I was to send this response to the member’s personal email address not the main forum. There were plenty of posts of dreams for holidays and stories of helpful locals, although this was aspirational and motivational it did not stimulate my desire to share or participate. Finally I noticed a question about where to stay in Japan and was able to provide some advice. This post made me feel I was contributing and gave me confidence for further participation. 

According to Hirumi 2002, Vrasidas and McIsaac 1999,  ’Meaningful interactions is not just sharing personal opinions. Instead the interaction must stimulate the learner’s intellectual curiosity, engage them in productive instructional activities and directly influence their learning’ (Woo and Revees 2007, 16).

One of the most significant personal learning impacts has been a quest for knowledge that has extended beyond the learning conversations and personal opinions of the forum. This quest resulted in the creation of new knowledge in relation to an understanding of online travel communities. I began to analyse who I should trust in the community and why should I trust them. I looked for evidence of qualifications, longevity and comparison with other websites offering a similar experience. My posts on testing the authenticity of travel blogs , commercial travel blogging  and trust  on my weblog are part of this learning journey. The creation of this new knowledge will help my professional understanding of online travel communities and fulfilment of my learning expectations outlined in task one.

4.0 The community - a vehicle for learning 

As outlined in task one, my view of a learning community was shaped by social learning theory and situated learning theory which underpins the notion of Lave and Wenger’s communities of practice (Smith 2003). The Travezine provides the environment for learning that is ‘… derived from rich conversations with other people who have similar or different perspectives based on their life experiences ‘(Woo and Reeves 2007, 18). Within the Travelzine community, members learn from each other through exchanges and feedback, which result in the creation of relationships, knowledge and meaning. The diverse and global membership base which is reflected in different cultures and nationalities is united by a common interest “love of travel” and the community is based in the situated context of global travel which creates boundaries for discussion and learning. It is these social and cultural factors which facilitate learning within the community.

According to Wenger (2001) successful communities of practices has more to do with the social, cultural and organisational issues and it is more important to address these issues than search for the perfect technology platform. At first I was critical of the basic technology platform as I expected to see a more dynamic interface with access to the latest shareware technology like podcasting, videos, RSS feeds and visual images representing people’s travel experiences. However after participation and observation of community members the technology is appropriate for the demographics of the group whose largest components would be retirees – learning is still taking place. 

 Wenger (2001) also states that it is important to understand how technology can help or hinder communities and has developed a list of thirteen fundamental elements which technology can affect. I will focus on the most relevant to the Travelzine.  

1. Efficiency of involvement – the technology is easy to learn and use. It can be easily integrated into work or home computer systems.
2. Presence and visibility – you can see who is on and offline with the capacity for instant messaging
3. Personal identity – I felt this is missing from the Travelzine. Most people have not filled in there personal profiles and there is limited self disclosure about identities apart from on joining. There is no directory of membership where people can create sub-groups, find experts or people with similar interests.
4. Community identity – the shared values are strong, reflected in the home page, the mission statement and passionate posts. However the generic interface of Yahoo Groups does not create a visual sense of the community identity.
5. Knowledge generating interactions – the site offers both asynchronous and synchronous opportunities for members to meet and share regularly. It has developed a content rich environment however the featured static travelogues could be expanded to a Wiki format to create collaborate travelogues which would keep the knowledge evolving and current.
6. Active community building – the moderator and group of moderators may be too controlling of the content however this may be justified due to the preference of the community to keep the site non-commercial.
7. Connections to the world – there are established links to relevant external travel sites however there is no live RSS feeds which would keep people up to date with the global travel world eg current weather /travel warnings.

Conclusion and links to research and readings on learning communities.

Throughout the body of this report I have attempted to link my experience in observing and participating in The Travelzine with research and readings on learning communities. The key influences have been social constructivist theory and the dominate paradigm of communities of practices. The expanding and evolving body of knowledge on communities of practice by Wenger is providing guidance for educators in analysing and designing learning communities. ‘Learning is first and foremost the ability to negotiate new meanings’ (Wenger 1999, 226). My participation in the Travelzine has included a learning experience which has drawn on my ability to negotiate new meanings in relation to online travel communities and has stimulated a desire for further exploration on the issue of trust within online communities.         

 References: 

Bishop, J (2007) Increasing participation in online communities: A framework for human-computer interaction E Learning and Virtual Communities, viewed 30 April 2008 http://www.jonathanbishop.com/Library/Documents/EN/docOCPaper_CHB.pdf 

Cornford, I.R (1999) ‘Social Learning’, in James Athanasou (ed.), Adult Education Psychology, Sydney Social Press, Katoomba, pp 73-80  

Kim, A.J. (2000) Community building on the web viewed 30 April 2008 <http://www.naima.com/community/ch05/index.html> 

Oregon University System (n.d) Oregon Network for Education Glossary of Terms viewed 30 April 2008 <http://www.oregonone.org/glossary.htm> 

Freedman, D and L (2008) The TravelZine, viewed 18 March 2008 <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheTravelzine> 

Saunders, S (1999) ‘Social Psychology of Adult Learning’, in James Athanasou (ed.), Adult Education Psychology, Sydney Social Press, Katoomba, pp 26-71

Smith, M.K. (2003) Communities of practice, The encyclopedia of information education, viewed 1^st May 2008, <www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm>  

Wenger, E (1999) ‘Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity’ Cambridge, University Press, USA

Wenger, E (2001) Supporting Communities of Practices – a survey of community oriented technologies viewed 25 April 2008 http://www.ewenger.com/tech/

 Woo Y and Reeves T (2007) ‘Meaningful interaction in web-based learning: A social constructivist interpretation’ Internet and Higher Education vol 10 pp 15-25

Ramblings |