I have been reflecting about the online learning community projects I have been involved in over the past 5 years or so to try and identify some patterns. From my experience I could identify several features that initiatives display to greater or lesser extents. No criticism is attached to anyone group, this is just what it seems like to meâ€¦â€¦
A great deal of enthusiasm from some quarters â€“ thankfully there risk takers and early adopters out there!
A lack of understanding that â€˜culture changeâ€™ is actually at the heart of the initiatives not online learning communities. We live in a world where f2f dominates and is valued and changing this puts us in direct conflict with deeply embedded beliefs and value sets about how we learn, manage, and organize ourselves. This could take a decade or more to change.
Back of envelope implementation â€“ no appreciation of the resource implications that are required. We readily accept the time and effort put into f2f meetings from the convenor through to the participants, but somehow online we rewrite the rules and expect the same outcomes to be achieved with a fraction of the resource allocation.
Not valuing online work â€“ it isnâ€™t seen so it isnâ€™t valued! Particularly an issues for sponsors of initiatives who have little direct experience and yet exert a great deal of ill informed control.
Fragmented initiatives â€“ organizations work in silos (nothing new about this)
A belief that because it is technologically straight forward to set things up, then it must be organizationally straight forward as well. It isnâ€™t, see change in culture above.
I am sure there are more characteristicsâ€¦â€¦