Campers

It seems that as we become more invested in our online identities, the boundaries that divide our online selves and our fleshy selves are getting harder to distinguish. These same boundaries are blurring as we move through online and real life communities. One community that is easy to look to as an example of such blurring is a classroom community — particularly as more instructors are including online components for classes that aren’t online classes. Suddenly, what used to be just a face to face community becomes a community that exists somewhere in both worlds: online and in real life. This can complicate the face to face community because now the identity we portray in different places online collides with the persona we show in face to face interactions.

Along with the difference between individual personas online and off, communities that exist online and off (like in a class) can take on different tones and personalities during face to face meetings and the interactions that occur online in Blackboard, Angel, on student blogs, or Twitter. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, in fact, I think it can be good. Some students feel more comfortable expressing things to a classroom face to face, and others will do better with online interactions. (This can be true for instructors as well.)

So often (and even in this post I did it) we qualify the difference between a “community” and an “online community”. Why? When the boundaries are becoming so blurred, is there really a distinct difference between the two? Do online communities operate differently than “real” communities? If there are differences, what are they? Do they matter? In a classroom situation, are there ways that instructors can ensure than the community functions online the way that it does in real life? Do they have to be the same? Does an online community produce different relationships between members? I’m curious to see if we can come up with some answers to these questions, but we will probably just end up with more questions….