I just attended the Facilitating Online Communities online course conference call. We were from Peru, Vancouver, New Zealand, Texas, Argentina, New York, Brunei, and elsewhere. Wow! What a global perspective to discuss some of the issues around communities. This was the first time I was able to attend one of our calls,

I am increasingly interested in the issues in and around technology, especially how the technological capacity, abilities, costs, and limitations can tend to direct how online communities communicate and develop.

There was some discussion about the mini online conference during weeks 12 and 13. Leigh Blackall mentioned some options for online community development, facilitation, and almost anything interesting around the idea of facilitating online communities. We should begin to consider topics of various interest, and it was suggested we group up and do a variety of online events:

In these two weeks you will focus on your event that you are facilitating as part of the course mini conference. The idea is for you to organize something for the conference, such as a guest speaker or a discussion panel through web conference; a discussion forum on a social networking platform; or assisting with the preparation and promotion of the mini conference generally. This will be your chance to facilitate real events and communication online, and explore more dimensions to facilitating online communities. 

I wonder if Sylvia Currie has an idea for us to work on? More about that soon enough . . .

• @gminks I have been for some time now. #
• Have been teaching Business Communication all day today. The summer intensives meet on weekends as well. #
• Long day teaching about to come to an end. #
• @gminks I use FeedDemon from Newsgator. Love the program! #
• Katie Holmes is in Bonpoint on Bleecker St. right now. Big crowd of people are outside taking photos and disrupting traffic. #

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I have used <Alt>+<Tab> for years as the shortcut to quickly switch between open application windows on my computer. As I work on a lot at once, this is a very handy friend to have around.

Frustrated that this does not help me switch between tabs in the newest version of Internet Explorer, I finally went to work to find how to do this, and located the answer I have been yearning for at Online Tech Tips.

The shortcut? <Ctrl>+<Tab>

Yes, it it that simple! Use <Ctrl>+<Tab> to switch between open tabs in Internet Explorer and Firefox, and then <Alt>+<Tab> to switch between open programs.

• Need to catch up with laundry and paperwork and class preparation today. #
• Just got the final review copies of oline learning books I need to look at for the online instruction class I am planning to teach. #
• @RobinYap Sounds like fun for you. #
• Shopped at Whole Foods this afternoon. I really like that store. #
• Pricing stock images for a consulting project. #
• Just got a great fortune: Every person is the architect of his own fortune. #

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• Just submitted a proposal abstract. #
• @gminks have been away from Twitter a bit this week. Am going to catch up now. #
• @gminks Wound eLearning is an elearning course on wound assessment and management. #
• @gminks Thank you. Phew . . . #
• @CourtBovee Thank you for the references. These books seem wonderful! #
• @CourtBovee I could not locate a single rss feed for http://real-timeupdates.com. Is there one? #
• @CourtBovee Looks like interesting texts. Have not come across them before. #
• @gminks Sorry I missed your message. Been behind with Twitter. #
• Just saw on the news that Manhattan is under a tornado warning. TORNADO??? #
• @gminks Amazing, isn’t it. All the news stations have weaether issues. The news reports there may have been the beginning of a funnel. #

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• Wanted to make it to the gym tonight, but have not left my computer. #
• Dragging this morning. Went to sleep late. Was prepping for class tonight and watching the Olympics. Never watched them much before. #
• I have a full class scheduled for tonight. A lot of focused group assignments to reinforce the objectives and engage the students. #
• In a wound elearning brainstorming meeting. #

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I think online communities of practice and even online classes are changing the ways we think about distance. It almost seems, from the perspective of community, that distance no longer exists. Does it matter if I email colleagues who are spread across the globe? Speak with them via Skype whenever and wherever they may be, as long as I get the timezones correct? Has this flattening of our world changed the way we think about people in other cultural contexts, within national identities, and exotic (and not so exotic) locales?

As my work and research begins to more formally be online, do I  have to be concerned with distance at all?

Further to my point here, what does all this mean for where and how communities form and interact? Leigh asked us to consider what online communities are in our FOC08 class, and I have managed to say exactly what they are not–they are not separated by distance.

I started this post before and finished after having a delightful conversation with a colleague in Brazil, Barbara Dieu. We started speaking (via skype text, which is speaking with the fingers) about Second Life and the FOC08 Course, and the next thing I knew is that Bee asked me what interests me and what I want to learn more about. I gushed about Lyotard’s “incredulity toward metanarrative, Mezirow’s transformative learning, Denzin / Lincoln / Guba’s work in qualitative research, Freire, Brookfield, pugs, cities, theories, technology, and Madame Butterfly.

I think that community is in there someplace. Something about openness to ideas and encouragement to grow and learn and become more present. Something about being with others who share a space next to us along the journey, whatever and wherever it may lead.

This conversation would never have happened without the community focus of this course, and how our different interests and experiences helps to inform and realize them. To all this, community adds and supports, and it has an amazing capacity to do all this without regard to distance.

Perhaps communities of practice help realize the Internet’s claim to make the world a smaller place, though one with more individual possibilities?

Tags: community of practice, FOC08, Lyotard, postmodern

• Need coffee. Glad it is beautiful outside. #
• I started teaching my summer Business Communication course last night. It really is an intensive. #
• Struggling to learn the NYU online course system, Epsilen. #
• I have been very quiet on Twitter recently. #

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Work, teaching, preparing to teach in the Fall, and the general hassle of life in the big city finds me busier than I ever recall being this deep into the summer. With my current Business Communication two-week intensive class beginning last night and its ending just before Labor Day (which means the summer ends in 2 weeks, at least for those of us who function in an academic mentality!), I see the summer slipping away . . .

As I try to dig out from a mountain of email and online discussions and papers and projects, I have to continually remind myself to seize the day and enjoy every last drop of the fleeting summer. After all, tomorrow there will be more communications and tasks and challenges, and the summer of 2008 will only be a memory.

What sort of a memory do I want to make it?