factors effecting participation in online communities of practice: a case study of wia (preliminary...

Factors affecting participation

in OCoP: A case study of

Webheads in Action (WiA)

Ali Bostancioglu(ab1007@york.ac.uk)

November, 2014

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Sociocultural learning and activity theory

3. Participants

4. Results

5. Conclusion and “What is next?”

1. Introduction

Aim: to find out factors affecting

participation in OCoPs

Why Webheads? (A community that has

been around for 12 years)

What did the study involve? (Survey, Online

Interaction Analysis, Interviews)

Focus of the session (Interview findings)

2. Sociocultural learning theory

Learning is a social process that

occurs through our interactions with

others.

Situated learning (Lave & Wenger,

1990),

Distributed cognition (Hutchinson,

1995),

Activity Theory ( Engestrom, 1987).

2. Sociocultural learning theory

Activity Theory: “Misnamed”

(Masterman 2008, p. 224)

In fact, provides an analytical tool to

explore sociocultural learning

2. Sociocultural learning theory

The structure of human activity system (Engestrom, 1987, 78)

Any Questions so far?

3. Participants

69 survey participants

24 interviews (ranging between 35 and

almost 2 hour).

4. Results

A) Community

B) Tools

C) Norms

D) Division of Labour

4. Results

A) Community

Who the Webheads are?

4. Results A) Community

Gender

4. Results A) Community

Native vs Non-native

4. Results A) Community

Teaching in; 44 higher education, 15 High/

Secondary School, 5 primary school

4. Results A) Community

A diverse community members of which are

from all over the world (6 continents).

Homogenous in that they are all interested

in learning about technology and it’s

educational applications (particularly in

language teaching).

4. Results

B) Tools

Yahoo Group

Learning2gether platforms

Skype

Google + and Facebook WiA groups

4. Results- B) Tools

Yahoo Group

“This is the central channel, that’s why. I

mean if you follow the Yahoo Group then

you don’t really miss anything”

“(E)verybody is there and eventually

everybody will read the message”

“A lot of us started with the Yahoo group.

We like it because […] it works and it's

technologically friendly to most people”

4. Results- B) Tools, Learning2gether

“(B)ecause you can see people, you can

listen to them, you can you know visualize

what they are talking about through the

power points and all that and the photos

and drawings. So I think it's a very powerful

means of communication”

Timing and date problems

Flexible

Catch up from recordings

4. Results- B) Tools

Skype

More used by members that were

considered as active or core members.

“I prefer Skype because it's very practical

uhm because we can start chat any time

you know that I am here at the computer. If

somebody needs me I am here”

4. Results- B) Tools

Google + and Facebook WiA groups

Visually appealing

No discussions taking place

To follow events

4. Results- B) Tools

Google +, is it good for community

building? Yes/ No, why?

4. Results

C) Norms

Support

Politeness and respect

Avoiding religious discussions

Avoiding political discussions

Avoiding spamming

Regular meetings

4. Results- C) Norms

Support

Social support (sharing emotions,

successes, sadness, holiday messages)

Technical support

4. Results- C) Norms

“Hi everyone,

I'm planning to do a newscasting project this Monday for my

Mass Media class. In the past, I've been using podomatic.

however, last year, I've encountered a few glitches with their

system which made class management a bit chaotic.

Are there free podcasting tools out there that I can use?

Easy sign up, easy recording, easy playback and feedback

(comments).

Thanks for the help.”

That help request received a response

within 24 hours. Within the next day a total

of 5 different suggestions were provided to

the member seeking advice.

4. Results C) Norms

Politeness and respect

“Politeness is at the top” within the WiA

community. Members “use ‘Dear [name]’”,

“say ‘Thank you!’ to show gratitude”, and “if

there is a problem or a situation, we always

say ‘We are sorry about these’ or ‘We

apologize for this’”.

4. Results C) Norms

Respect “is something that [Webheads]

value”. Members have “ideas and share

ideas, you may like them or not and you may

discuss why you don't like this or the other

always respectfully”.

4. Results C) Norms

Avoiding political and religious discussions

WiA community members “don’t talk about

politics or religion […] because [they] want

to be open to anybody”

“We have always gotten along very well,

there are things that we don't discuss but I

think I don't discuss them ever. Things such

as religion, politics and so on…We avoid

these topics but we avoid them in a natural

way”

Further elaboration on avoiding

politics

“Yeah or politics is ok if it has got some relevance to

teaching or to uhm methodology but if it's politics... Uhm

let's take an obvious example, the Israel and Palestinian

situation. If someone was to start saying 'Well Israel is

good because of this or Israel is bad because of that',

Vance would step and then say 'That's not what this list is

for'. We all know we have different opinions but it's just...

It's not a place where we want to have an argument. […]

We can have a vigorous debate about the pros and cons

of a particular teaching approach and people would

disagree and be quite strong in their disagreement so

that's okay but we don't do that for politics or religion for

example”

4. Results C) Norms

Avoiding spamming

Regular meetings

4. Results

D) Division of Labour

Volunteering

Leadership

Training opportunities

4. Results D) Div. of Lab.

Volunteering

contributions to the WiA community is

“done on people’s initiatives”

“So I thought that besides learning with the

Webheads, I needed to give my share

because I had learned so much with them

so I felt compelled to share with them and

with my network.”

4. Results D) Div. of Lab.

Leadership

Core members seen as leaders

But in general it was Vance who was

mentioned the most.

He maintains the Learning2gether, makes

announcements, is the admin of the Yahoo,

Facebook, and Google + WiA groups

He can use some help for the

Learning2gether events

5. Conclusion & What is next?

There is not one yet but to summarize I

tried to reflect on my findings today

Look into more details of the differences

between different membership levels

Lurkers vs Active and Core members

Try and create a coherent story from the

findings

6. Questions

Any questions?

Are there any points that

people would like to add to or

clarify in case you think my

interpretation was wrong?

6. Questions

Thank you!