Why am I here?

This blog is being created as part of the learning activities in "Facilitating Online Communities", an online course being offered through WikiEducators beginning 28 July, 2008. As near as I can understand it, the purpose of having each member of the class set up a blog is to serve something of a journaling function, to be shared with others in the class.

Why am I taking the class? I teach online courses (as well as courses of other types). I'm acutely aware of the importance of community in online classes, simply because of first-hand experience of both positive and negative examples. I like to think that my courses now have a pretty decent sense of community -- but what I've done, I've done mostly on the basis of instinct and trial-and-error. I don't have an organized sense of how to nurture and improve the online community in a class; I don't have an understanding of relevant theory; I don't know the research base. All of these things would probably help me to do a better job in my own classes.

I also spend a lot of time helping faculty teach better (I'm a faculty member at a university). A more formal knowledge of this topic would help me do a better job of helping _them_ nurture community in their classes.

I'm also interested in the whole "Web 2.0" phenomenon. While I've used many of the tools this class employs at one time or another, I've never participated in a class that uses them in quite this way. I'm hoping that by being a student in this context I'll gain a better understanding of how to be a teacher in this context.