Invitations   Goals/Participants  Definitions/Issues  Tools/Media
Principles/Structure  Practices/Techniques  Implications/Next Steps

WORKING DRAFT
The Argument:  Why we need the BCCOOC Series, "Building Community and Connections Online and On Campus"
Please let us know where you see omissions
and how/what you can contribute!

 Every five years or so the same conspiracy arises -- in a new disguise.  Once again, educators are being pressed to reduce too much of education to a commodity that can be easily duplicated, marketed, sold, and distributed.  Too many educators are convincing themselves and others that we can use new technology applications to significantly reduce the costs of education (usually by increasing the student/faculty ratio) while maintaining or improving the quality of learning. 

Shifts in demographics, the economy, and information technology are used to distract, frighten, and mislead educators and the general public.  Too many people are convinced too easily that they can and should reduce all education to a commodity that can be easily duplicated, marketed, sold, and distributed. 

Their convictions are built on false claims:
- All education is only about the duplication and delivery of information, knowledge or skills.
- New technologies can capture and reproduce all that previously mattered when teachers and students connected with each other.
- The goal is to make education scalable and interchangeable – as independent as possible of the personal characteristics and skills of any single teacher.  Individual needs, abilities, and learning styles of students may be treated as worthy of attention, but the faculty are treated as if any variations among them are minor distractions.

However, ironically, these falsehoods gain credibility from the extremism and equally flagrant misstatements of their most rabid opponents.  False claims such as:
- All education relies heavily on personal relationships among learners and teachers.
- New technologies cannot capture and reproduce anything useful from the intense, personal interactions of learners and teachers.
- Only certain selected members of the faculty could possibly have the wisdom and experience necessary to judge and guide their colleagues.
- The goal is to protect teachers’ sacred rights to do almost anything they wish.

Usually, I just wait for the old tide of reality to flow in and douse the zealots’ inflammatory claims - as most people awaken, pay more attention to their own senses, and see what really works and what really doesn’t.  And see, once again, what kinds of education people are willing to spend extra money and effort to get for their children and for themselves.  Once we notice the less flamboyant, often unheralded, changes achieved by dedicated and able teachers and staff members, they may have already found ways no one ever anticipated to integrate new technology and telecommunications options and by doing so to improve the variety, accessibility, and quality of many kinds of education.  (Often at higher costs – at least in terms of faculty time.)

But this time I want to do something more.  We realize that this kind of challenge requires a sustained effort, and one that makes use of the very new tools, techniques, and principles that can help “build community online and on campus.”

I want to work with people to identify some of the aspects of human relationships that continue to be important for many kinds of education.  Relationships between learners and teachers.  Relationships among learners and among teachers.  Relationships among many different kinds of people who work within a single institution (professional staff;  blue collar staff;  adjunct faculty in schools, colleges, and universities of all kinds).  People dedicated, even indirectly, to fostering the advancement of skills, knowledge, understanding – perhaps even wisdom and other dimensions of human growth.

I realize that the term “community” has been diluted and distorted in recent years.  The fact that hundreds of thousands of people “visit” the same Web page frequently makes them no more of a “community” than those who subscribe to the same newspaper.  I have some ideas about the meaning of “community,” and I look forward to exploring with and learning from others who have been thinking, researching, and writing about “community.” 

However, I want to temporarily set aside the argument about the definition of “community.”  Rather, I hope we can agree to proceed as I’m about to describe – even as we continue to try to develop more commonly accepted and deeply understood meanings of “community.” 

I want to work with people who can identify characteristics of the personal relationships and the quality and dimensions of communication among teachers and learners that matter deeply to many of them.  I want to work with people who can identify tools, techniques, and principles that help teachers and learners achieve and sustain these relationships and these kinds of communication.  I want to work with people who can help each other and others to find, develop, adopt, use, assess, adapt, and share resources for teaching and learning that “build community online and on campus.”  I want to make the way we organize and run our BCCOOC Series and related activities reflect the same goals, values, and developing resources that are guiding us and bringing us together.  Of course, that includes accepting and learning from our failures as we take the risks necessary to move forward.

I’ve begun referring to this effort as “building community online and on campus” because I believe that “building community” can serve as something like a constructive catchphrase or positive symbol for the elements that are being ignored or undermined by those who press most blindly to homogenize too many kinds of education. 

Please explore the working draft Website about this kind of building community at:  <<http://www.tltgroup.org/CommunityOnlineOnCampus.htm>>.  It’s about “building community online and on campus,” organized around these main elements:

      Invitation to Participate face-to-face and online events

      Challenge, Goals, Direction, Participants, and Activities

      Definitions Resources, Context and Issues

      Tools, Media – and associated Responsibilities

      Principles and Structure – For the Symposium itself and for Building Community Online and On Campus

      Practices and Techniques – Categories, Collections, and Assessment

      Implications and Next Steps

If some of the ideas raise some sparks within you, and you are willing to try to contribute to this nascent effort, please consider joining us.  I’m eager to hear from you – your suggestions for organizing the ideas and information more usefully;  additional references or resources you can strongly recommend and help make available;  provocative questions or challenging statements;  a specific technology application that you could explain and demonstrate in support of certain aspects of “community”;  and so on.

Steve Gilbert, President, The TLT Group