Building Virtual Communities
Learning and Change in Cyberspace

Building Virtual Communities examines how learning and cognitive change are fostered by online communities.

K. Ann Renninger (Edited by), Wesley Shumar (Edited by)

9780521785587, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 8 July 2002

416 pages, 19 b/w illus. 10 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.61 kg

'… this volume provides an important initial grounding to a topic of much interest to educators, designers, sociologists, anthropologists, and even past, present, and future community members.' Convergence 2003

Building Virtual Communities examines how learning and cognitive change are fostered by online communities. Contributors to this volume explore this question by drawing on their different theoretical backgrounds, methodologies, and personal experience with virtual communities. Each chapter discusses the different meanings of the terms community, learning, and change. Case studies are included for further clarification. Together, these chapters describe the building out of virtual communities in terms that are relevant to theorists, researchers, and practitioners. The chapters provide a basis for thinking about the dynamics of Internet community building. This includes consideration of the role of the self or individual as a participant in virtual community, and the design and refinement of technology as the conduit for extending and enhancing the possibilities of community building in cyberspace. Building Virtual Communities will interest educators, psychologists, sociologists, and researchers in human-computer interaction.

Preface K. Ann Renninger and Wesley Shumar
Foreword: virtual communities for learning and development: a look to the past and some glimpses into the future Michael Cole
Introduction: on conceptualizing community Wesley Shumar and K. Ann Renninger
Part I. Types of Community: 1. The mystery of the death of Mediamoo: seven years of evolution of an online community Amy Bruckman and Carlos Jensen
2. Female voices in virtual reality: drawing young girls into an on-line world Ann Locke Davidson and Janet Ward Shofield
3. Community building with and for teachers at the math forum K. Ann Renninger and Wesley Shumar
4. Learning in the virtual community depends upon changes in local communities Beverly Hunter
Part II. Structure and Community: 5. Evolution of an on-line education community of practice Mark S. Schlager, Judith Fusco and Patricia Schank
6. Building social networks via computer networks: creating and sustaining distributed learning communities Caroline Haythornthwaite
7. Mask and identity: the hermeneutics of self construction in the information age Dorian Wiszniewski and Richard Coyne
8. WISE learning communities: design considerations Alex J. Cuthbert, Douglas B. Clark and Marcia C. Linn
Part III. Possibilities for Community: 9. Reflexive modernization and the emergence of wired self-help Roger Burrows and Sarah Nettleton
10. Understanding the lifecycles of network-based learning communities James Levin and Raoul Cervantes
11. Learning in cyberspace: an educational view of virtual community D. Jason Nolan and Joel Weiss
12. Finding the ties that bind: tools in support of a knowledge-building community Christopher M. Hoadley and Roy D. Pea
Afterword: building our knowledge of virtual community: some responses David Hakken
Afterword: building, buying, or being there: imagining online community Steven G. Jones.

Subject Areas: Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR]