Online Training, 2005,
LearningTimes, LLC.
Review by Jon Aleckson
Rating:
In a hurry?
Recommendation
Untitled Document
Online communities of practice have been a part of corporate and academic e-learning and mentoring since the 1990s. Listservs and discussion groups were some of the first ways organizations used the Internet for knowledge distribution. The recent popularity of blogs and other technologies has inspired trainers to take a new look at how community and learning are synonymous.
This review evaluates an independent public learning community, www.learningtimes.org. I became involved and interviewed people in the community. I visited the LearningTimes community and its affiliates weekly for over 10 weeks and started one discussion thread on e-learning project management. I emailed community members directly with questions and had phone discussions with co-founder Jonathan Finkelstein. Although there are few similar public sites to compare to, based on community-building practices and the community members enthusiasm about the way LearningTimes covers live learning conferences, I give LearningTimes.org four stars!
What is it?
LearningTimes manages some 30,000 registered members participating in about 50 communities, both public and private. The membership group “is an open community... for education-minded people. Members have free access to a wide range of opportunities to interact and network with peers from across the globe—live online, asynchronously, and face to face.”
The “back story” of this site is enriched by a tale about why a squirrel is used as their logo. It originated from a live webcast with a group of college professors. When asked to identify a great “learning moment,” one professor offered: “As a college student, chasing squirrels with one of my professors.” The notion that some of the best learning moments happen because of interaction with other people is an important value of the LearningTimes site. So much so, that the site holds regular live events on the web.
Using synchronous technology, the LearningTimes Network
sponsors online versions of in-session conferences for people who cannot attend. In March 2005, the LearningTimes Network will hold an online version of VNU’s Training Conference 2005, being held in New Orleans. During the Fall Online Learning conference in San Francisco, the group held the second annual
Live Online Awards
(LOLA) completely online. A live conference may feature as many as 80 synchronous presentations over a three-day period. One-hour webcasts, featuring speakers on hot topics like “Games in Education,” are scheduled and recorded to maintain year-round interest in the community.
Who belongs?
Half of the membership is from higher education and 25% are K-12 educators; the remaining 25% come from nonprofits and corporate training. Of the impressive 7,000 members who have registered on the free site, about 20% visit the site every month
and about 75% choose to receive automatic daily email updates from the site highlighting new community activity. Is this just another site trainers and learners need to periodically visit? The most important challenge of all communities of practice is an old one: If you build it, will they come?
This is where the final story is yet to be written. My weekly visits to LearningTimes.org didn’t reveal a lot of vibrant activity. Discussion posts from a recent educational conference in Berlin, Germany, failed to generate discussion. One member responded to me with the 
following: “I think it’s a great clearinghouse for conference proceedings.” However, he admitted he had only visited the site a few times. He had not posted a comment but felt the site was well organized and had lots of content. Nevertheless, I found the auto-generated emails made checking on designated discussion threads a breeze.
People may be reluctant to contribute to a discussion group because it exposes them to public scrutiny. Site producer Jonathan Finkelstein suggests that individuals post short thoughts to generate reaction and then add additional thoughts later. He considers about 75% of the total affiliated community members to be active users. “We have three categories of community, one type is time-based [and] is busy for short periods because of an event; another type is the closed community... for professional objectives; and the third type is open playgrounds....”
Here’s what Finkelstein has to say about the discussion activity on the site:
The site generates on average about four new substantive discussion topics per day…. Also, the discussion posts don't account for the round-the-clock activity in the community's live meeting rooms and Member Offices, which serve, on average, 225 people per day in live collaborative exchanges and meetings, nor the other types of content that get posted daily in the public site and in the many sub-committee groups within the site which serve smaller volunteer constituencies within the overall site.
Incidentally, "Member Offices" are a key feature of the community…. [They] are offered through the LT "Global Collaboration Grant" (LTGCG) Program, which provides these virtual meeting rooms for educational purposes to qualified individuals, institutions, and organizations, often at no charge.
Members may use these spaces for meetings, classes, mentoring, or other live collaboration events for specified noncommercial purposes. Generally, offices have a limited number of concurrent users (three to 10 seats); a fixed time period (3-6 months); and a specific purpose. Once a proposal is approved by the LT Board, the member and guests receive 24/7 access to the office through the Member Office Suite.
My online discussions with LearningTimes.org members who had recently visited the site indicated participation for professional enrichment. There is strong interest among individuals in the arts and museum arena. A member associated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York was introducing the site to counterparts around the country. She has used it for presentations of museum programs to teachers. LearningTimes.org is a type of free playground and meeting place that becomes active around live conferences or scheduled presentations. The site spins off many sub-groups. According to Finkelstein, private community members are more active as they have job-related incentives to participate.
The New York City Department of Education uses an associated private community (Finkelstein's company, LearningTimes LLC, produces and manages the LearningTimes Network, a set of interconnected private and public communities) to provide ongoing professional development to their 11,000 professionals. NYC teachers appreciate that they do not have to travel, and discussion board activity on best practices and the spontaneous use of real time meeting space is growing. The district has even begun to provide “teacher mentors” with tablet PCs. Another active private community is using the LearningTimes Network for collaboration among scientists around the globe to improve nutrition in developing countries through “Micro-Nutrition.”
Run for mayor?
Individuals who do participate actively have the opportunity to play important leadership roles in the community and help set new rules and rituals for community members. LearningTimes has organized a formal certification program for becoming a community “mayor.” This designation not only assures that an individual understands the tools and technology of community building but also best practices of “creating a vibrant collaborative online environment.”
One vexing issue several “mayors” have overcome is how to increase community participation. Jennifer Hofmann has devised a system on her associated "InSync Center" community by which members are awarded "points" for participation. These points are redeemable for the purchase of community products such as books and workshops. The LT community feature of setting email updates based on user preferences allows members to keep up with community postings or events as frequently as desired. Other user-selected preferences can result in enhanced member identity within the LT community. The ability to upload a portrait enables a willing participate to share more than what is posted in the member profile section. Some “mayors” have used this effectively during asynchronous discussion sessions. During one conference, a virtual coffee break came to life as members uploaded pictures of their favorite coffee mug. Personal “coffee break” type text chat followed as members explained why the cup was important to them.
Several individuals have met online and agreed to co-present at a conference in the future. Many of the associated communities began as public discussion groups. Multiple universities are represented as are groups who serve K-12 schools. Corporate trainers have established spin-off communities to hold fee-based training programs. Hofmann's In Sync trains and supports online synchronous moderators. Workshops by Thiagi enable individuals around the world to participate with and be exposed to one of the early promoters of “games and education,” Dr. Sivasailam Thiagarajan.
Community of practice guru Amy Jo Kim maintains, “Designing learning environments is not merely a matter of getting the curricular material right but is crucially also a matter of getting the situated emergent community structures and practices right.” LT's technology and main menu interface have helped “get it right” with multiple “places” and “events” that help build a sense of “story,” member presence, and identity; allow for member roles and rituals to develop; facilitate frequent live events; and ultimately enable the spinoff of other thriving educational communities.
Recommendation
I recommend that corporate trainers register for free membership in LearningTimes.org and find out how technologically advanced communities of practice can help achieve academic and corporate e-learning goals and objectives. Join and be inspired!
