When Virtual Goes Face to Face

In a moment of pure meta, I'm posting here on Classroom 2.0 while we talk about Classroom 2.0 in an session at the edubloggercon about virtual learning communities.

So... I'd argue that Classroom 2.0 is more of a VLC than someone's blog. VLCs bring with it some very different values and therefore brings different people (with a great deal of overlap, obviously) to take part in the community.

What do you think brings people to something like Ning as opposed to (addition to?) the traditional blogosphere?

Tags: virtual_learning_communities

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Permalink Reply by Emil Stoyanov on July 1, 2007 at 2:20pm

That is a good question. I wasn't very enthusiastic about ning until I dig into some of the sites like this one. At the beginning I was thinking this is the next "social network" which it is, but its attitude makes it really what I imagine when I hear or read the term "Web 2.0". I'm eager to explore it deeper and see how it evolves. And what I'm sure will make me stick to it is the fact that after short time of tinkering I decided to create a network. In my opinion the "network" is the new "site" - they are on the same level of access but in twp different but parallel ages of the internet.

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Permalink Reply by Christine Southard on July 2, 2007 at 6:15am

I have truly enjoyed the connections that I've made on Web 2.0. Although I read blogs and I use them with my students, I'm not a true blogger at heart. I have baby-step blogs I've created in my profile, but I'm a people person so I thrive in the VLC created by CR 2.0. and the feedback from my CR 2.0 friends. I like the message boards and the ning networking aspects, and I've made some face-to-face connections to my teaching techie peers through applications like Skype. Although there is some overlap between blogging & ning, I agree with Alice Mercer, "you have a better chance of someone reading and responding to what you post. It's there, whether you maintain it or not--you can drop in, and drop out." Ning works with my schedule and that is why I like it. :D