Communities I Belong
One of the first questions we must ask as we begin to plan and design a project is: “Who is the audience?” As educators, we have several defined groups that we interact with such as our students and colleagues. We can define some of the people we connect with as members of a community that includes certain characteristics that define the group norms and essentially “make the a group.” It also means that we choose to be a part of the group, or have been admitted into the group. What “communities” do you have membership in? Think about the people in your world – personal and professional. A few examples include school, church, sports etc. (Families are not included because we didn’t “choose” them).
1. Make a list of the communities you are a part of.
2. What are the characteristics that define a community? Examples: shared understandings, syntax, gender, belief system etc.
3. Do these characteristics pertain to all of the communities you listed?
4. List a few online sources where members of these communities can go to interact with other community members. If you aren’t sure, use the search tool.
5. Look at one or two sites and describe how the group norms are communicated.
6. Do you think people outside of the group would understand what the group values?
Jason Seliskar · December 1, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Some of the communities I am a “part of” are here at school, my students and colleagues. Also, I have a higher education community of peers trying to achieve the same goal of a Master’s degree. A community of ed tech teachers. I have an audience at church with members of the church and participants in small groups. I have a family who is an audience most of the time. A community is a place where similar interests are common. Communities can overlap, but mostly have a stronger common area(s). The common link to most of my “communities” is either Christ related from church or small groups or its in an educational setting with school, APU or online or conference communities that deal with educational technology. Some of the websites or Web 2.0 type sites that help connect these communities are Skype, Google Wave, Wikis, bookmarking sites like Delicious and Diigo. WE have teacher sites that we subscribe to and podcasts others create in iTunes or blogs. Blogtalkradio is an online community that has many different topics. Some of these sites have a certain purpose and goal. These sites like Delicious provide a service that makes online communities easier to collaborate and share. These sites provide a distinct explanation of how they work, why they work, and how your web 2.0 experience can be better by using it. I guess those outside or a the web 2.0 community would have a hard time understanding the purpose and benefit for sites like these. Some teachers outside the edtech world seem to noy understand some of the benefits and ease these may bring.
lynese · December 1, 2009 at 6:26 pm
The communities I belong to would include: school, work, church, children’s ministry, small group bible study, weight loss “healthy lifestyles” group.
The characteristics that define a community would be shared interests (hobbies, philanthropic, social service, etc.), common goals, desire for growth in an area (personal, professional, spiritual, pyschological), belief system.
Janet Williford · December 3, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I was sick for Tuesday, Dec. 1, class. Did you receive my email before class? How do you want this assignment turned in?
lynese · December 8, 2009 at 9:13 pm
In looking over the website, it seems that the values and purpose of the website as well as the organization are pclear. It’s hard to be unbiased, but knowing the church, and then reviewing the site, I feel like it’s true, clear and purposeful. It doesn’t seem to busy or cluttered. It seems easy to navigate whether you know what you’re looking for or just browsing.
lynese · December 8, 2009 at 9:17 pm
This website was pretty easy to navigate and had a lot of resources available to someone as a Christian educator or concerned parent. There were a lot of resources available and the look of it wasn’t overwhelming. It was easy to find the purpose of the organization as well as the site. The norms are a little more difficult to read into. However, after reviewing different resources available as well as the articles from the site, it is pretty clear that the values are based on Christian principles. I was really glad to find this site and will use it for professional and personal uses.
Janet Williford · December 28, 2009 at 9:59 am
Some of the communities I belong to are my church; the school I work at which also happens to be my church; the Murrieta campus of APU, specifically in the Educational Technology and Learning program; The Villages of Avalon homeowners’ association; and more specifically my neighborhood.
The characteristics that define some of the communities I belong have like-mindedness, single mission focus, a common belief system, and similar goals. Not all of these characteristics are included in all the communities. The characteristics are dependent on each group and the central focus of each.
Some of these communities have online resources to communicate and interact. Sites like https://www.edline.net/pages/calvarylions, http://www.ccmoval.com,
http://www.villagesofavalon.com, http://www.facebook.com, and http://lancesfa.com/blog open ways for my associates and me to receive and send information with other community members.
Within each particular site, group norms are communicated within the contents of the information related by what each site represents. For example, on my school’s site, https://www.edline.net/pages/calvarylions, you can see the mission statement and Bible verse relating to a Christian emphasis. Also a visitor would only be allowed onto this main page, but if a “log-in” code is entered, the member can go into particular pages based on the data connected with the login code accessing teacher sites and grades for the particular student(s). I believe on most sites, the group value held by the site is evident and is communicated to the visitors of the webpage.
david · February 11, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Some of the communities that I belong to are some social networking sites. I use Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, Google Wave, Bebo, and others to stay in contact with family and friends. It has been a great way for me stay up-to-date with current trends and concepts in relation to design and photography. I’d also have to say that my workplace is a community as well. We constantly share ideas and thoughts with other teachers to help us better educate our students.
I know that not all of these communities have the same beliefs or shared understandings, but I try to keep my involvement to those that have the same standards and beliefs as me. If someone were to look in from the outside into one of my groups, they would notice a definite theme and central idea to all of them.
Christian Arteaga · February 12, 2010 at 12:30 pm
One of the communities I belong to is education. I work at an elementary school and the teachers at our site are all experienced teachers that have been teaching for plenty of years, except for me. I am the “rookie” to education at our site. Everyday I bounce around from classroom to classroom, asking questions and borrowing what I can to get new ideas. I am a firm believer in sharing what works. I too have plenty of ideas that I have acquired through my education, and share them with all of my colleagues. A website we all use at our site is Renaissance Place. This is where we all have our student take reading comprehension exams and share our results with one another.
Another community I belong to is friendship. Most of my friends and I share the passion of sports and music (hip-hop). Even though we all do not root for the same teams (Angels, Bulls, & Steelers), we all can enjoy talking about it. A website I use to express my thoughts about my team is angelsbaseball.com. There I read all of the current buzz about my team and post my thoughts along with other Angel fans.
The last community I belong to is Azusa Pacific. There I interact with other students and professors with wonderful ideas on how to enhance my classroom with technology.
Liliana Tolson · February 16, 2010 at 4:07 pm
In my professional world, the communities I belong to are Southwestern College, Monarch School, and Azusa Pacific University. Although I have an array of interests, such as jewelry design, digital design, and dance, I have yet to explore and join communities that share my interests. Thus, in my personal world, the communities I belong to are Zumba and faith-based groups that enjoy music, art, and God.
Personally, I’m drawn to communities that are based on love and respect. Do they love what they do? Do they respect the ideas and thoughts of others? Do they share their thoughts and ideas to help others grow? Simple as that! Whether professional or personal, I thrive in communities that share this belief system. I believe outside people looking in would see the commitment of others sharing their craft via creative mediums, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.
Ranger, Bob · February 16, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Some of the communities I am involved with can be broken down into family, friends, and work. Family unit stays in touch with Face book, Skype and through the telephone. Friend and work units keep in touch through the same medium as the family unit although e-mail is used quit a lot at work.
For the most part the units are kept together through common interests. For example, most of my friends have a common bond with the outdoors. We all enjoy fishing, weather it is fresh or salt water, we all enjoy the time we get to spend with each other. This group is of the male gender, male bonding is very important, although we will allow the female gender to participate sometimes. Any kind of inside information we can find about fishing is what we seek. Always trying to get one up on the other guy, and declare bragging rights to be the first, only to laugh at each other in fun.
The older part of the family unit has turned to Face book and My Space as a way to communicate with the younger family members, But to never criticize what is posted, just question, and never have the younger family members feel uncomfortable by posting along side their friends. Usually we use code to get a response from the younger members. Our bond is family ties, of caring, loving, and if wanted our opinions. As a unit we tried twitter, but found Face book more fun, with all those games; like Farmville. By far the family unit has an understanding among all the members. Options are respected, we love to share are thoughts and adventures. There are many families on our Face book unit; some related, but most are people we have meet through church, social events, families of boy or girl friends and so on.
At work the education unit has many rolls, most of the time it is to communicate information. We have a few ways to communicate, through e-mails, Face book, and now the union has a My Space. We all understand that big brother can be watching so communication is always work/education related. Many teachers are using on-line grading programs for the flexibility of communicating with students and parents. The top programs used at our school are:
SnapGrades an online grading program that allows students and parents the opportunity to check grades and weekly assignments.
http://snapgrades.net/
TeacherEase is web-based gradebook communication software that allows teachers to simplify grades and communicate with parents.
http://www.teacherease.com/gradebook.aspx
MyGradebook.com This free grading software allows parents to check their children’s grades through a secure online site. Teachers can also e-mail parents about their children’s progress.
http://www.mygradebook.com/
Liliana Tolson · February 21, 2010 at 10:42 am
In my professional world, the communities I belong to are Southwestern College, Monarch School, and Azusa Pacific University. Although I have an array of interests, such as jewelry design, digital design, and dance, I have yet to explore and join communities that share my interests. Thus, in my personal world, the communities I belong to are Zumba and faith-based groups that enjoy music, art, and God.
Personally, I’m drawn to communities that are based on love and respect. Do they love what they do? Do they respect the ideas and thoughts of others? Simple as that! Whether professional or personal, I thrive in communities that share this belief system. I believe outside people looking in would see the commitment of others sharing their craft via creative mediums, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.
Katie Minor · February 23, 2010 at 1:02 pm
I’ve been laid of from teaching but I still consider myself a part of the community at the elementary school I was previously employed with. The faculty had a really close knit bond, and since the closure of the school at the end of the 08-09 school year, we’ve used email and Facebook to keep in contact. The values of the community definitely revolve around education and we still exchange ideas but the community has turned to being more friendship based. People outside the community may understand the groups values but never at the personal level like the members of the community do. The closing of our school was one of the worst feelings and it was something that the staff all endured together. It’s one of those things where an outsider wouldn’t fully understand because they weren’t there and weren’t a part of it. I guess it’s an “exclusive” community.
My friends would be another community I belong to. All my friends have similar values, interests, and shared experiences. Facebook and text messaging is the easiest way for me to keep in contact with my friends. Outsiders would definitely be able to easily understand the values and beliefs of this community.
As I’ve been thinking about the communities I belong to I’ve noticed that these communities share beliefs, values, standards, etc. With the two communities I discussed above I noticed that in both, there are shared experiences that bring us together and help define our values.
David Dearie · February 25, 2010 at 9:45 pm
There’s a loaded question Lance, what communities do I belong to? Not necessarily in order of preference but more where I seem to dedicate much of my time. If Christianity can be classified as a community, it’s the one I place the highest priority. The community of Believers I place myself are the ones who read the Bible, adhere to scripture, dedicate their life to have Christ be the Lord of their life through serving Him, and fellowship whenever possible with other Believers. This community cannot isolate themselves from non-Christians either. Christ took twelve dudes, some He met before they acknowledged him as their Savior, and changed the world. Christian’s today should not live as if part of the world and doing as the world does, but be a light in the darkness of the world and befriend those who live in this darkness. Believe it or not, the community of Christians who strive to live according to scripture is relatively small. It’s a pretty difficult group but extremely rewarding. My group meets at church and we have a “faithbook” website called “THE CITY” where we “meet.”
The second group I belong to is family. We stay connected mainly through email, Facebook, and the phone. When I travel either locally or overseas the social media sites provide not only a venue to communicate through typing and talking but posting as well. It wasn’t log ago when I would wait weeks for letters and have photographs to remind me of my family. Now, if I go a day without and email, call, or photo, I’m wondering if anything is wrong!
Professionally I belong to a family of Chief Petty Officers. Chief’s are the backbone to the US Navy. We are the senior enlisted leaders walking the deckplates instructing Sailors and providing direction. We’re teachers in the classroom of life. Our room does not have four walls and our students have left their parents. Our walls are represented by the hull of the ship and we, the Chief’s, become the parents. Chiefs undergo specialized training that’s been perfected over 117 years (April 1, 1893 the rank was created). That is our bond, the Induction process that every Chief undergoes. Sort of like student teaching. Chief’s meet daily in the Chief Petty Officer Mess. We communicate through handshakes, hugs, eye contact, and coffee. Our community grows when we go to sea and bond. When there’s no one to depend on except your fellow Chief “brother or sister.” The main website we use is The Goat Locker.org as well as FaceBook.
Socially I belong to a community of coffee drinkers. Mainly, Starbucks. But I’m not a fancy drinking. I simply drink coffee. Only about 8 cups a day and twice that on Friday. Starbucks Friday. The one day a week I splurge and treat myself to a grande cup of coffee before work and again on the way home from work. I thrilled when the brew Verona but not so pleased with Sumatra. The coffee shop experience, to sit and listen to other peoples conversation or observe those finanical meetings that take place is always a hoot. You know the ones I’m talking about. The AMWAY recruiter. The mortgage lender. The internet sales rep explaining how to make bucks running your own site. Sometimes I see groups of three or four meeting with their bibles open trying to study God’s Word or lifting one another up in prayer. There’s many uses at a coffee shop, least of which, anymore, has been to purchase coffee. Oh, as far as a website for this community, there’s starbucks.com and a Starbucks group on FaceBook.
In conclusion, forgive any typos or sentences that don’t make sense. I’m pretty tired, just got the kids to bed, have one eye the Olympics (I love seeing the dedication of an athlete) and trying to catch up on my assignments. And the font is so small I with this black background I have a difficult enough time reading everyone else’s input I don’t have it in me to proof read my own. So there’s my disclaimer.