Also looking at online learners, this paper describes barriers to online participation, bringing that together under three main ideas ('radicals'). /Caroline Bregman, A. & Haythornthwaite, C. (2003). Radicals of presentation: Visibility, relation, and co-presence in persistent conversation. New Media and Society, 5 (1), 117-140. ---- Original message ----

Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:17:18 -0800 (PST) From: "Denise N. Rall" <denrall@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Air-l] Barriers to participation? To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org

Dear Angelina -

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. 1999. Building learning communities in cyberspace: Effective strategies for the online classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

These folks describe some of the barriers to participating in virtual communities. Here's the gist of one researcher from my thesis:

"As lessons from the virtual classroom indicate, not all students who participate in online communities are successful in developing online personae (see below). Pratt describes the considerable skill set required for online identity formation as the following: •the ability to carry on an internal dialogue in order to formulate responses •the creation of a semblance of privacy both in terms of the space from which the person communicates and the ability to create an internal sense of privacy •the ability to deal with emotional issues in textual form •the ability to create a mental picture of the partner in the communication process •the ability to create a sense of presence online through the personalization of communications (Pratt 1996: 119-120). Pratt, K. 1996. The electronic personality [unpublished thesis]. The Human Organization Systems Program, Fielding Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, CA.

Old stuff but -- will set up the dynamics for barriers to learning.

I suspect you are looking at the technology as a barrier. Pallof & Pratt look at the personality attributes of the user/learner as the barrier. As lessons from the virtual classroom indicate, not all students who participate in online communities are successful in developing online personae (see below). Pratt describes the considerable skill set required for online identity formation as the following: • the ability to carry on an internal dialogue in order to formulate responses • the creation of a semblance of privacy both in terms of the space from which the person communicates and the ability to create an internal sense of privacy • the ability to deal with emotional issues in textual form • the ability to create a mental picture of the partner in the communication process • the ability to create a sense of presence online through the personalization of communications (Pratt 1996: 119-120).

Steve Jones also noted: “The extent to which people use [the internet] as a means to invent new personas, to recreate their own identities, or engage in a combination of the two and the ways in which they do so are issues central to the construction of a computer-mediated social world” (Jones, S. 1997:156).

Cheers. Denise

Steve Jones noted: “The extent to which people use [the internet] as a means to invent new personas, to recreate their own identities, or engage in a combination of the two and the ways in which they do so are issues central to the construction of a computer-mediated social world” (Jones, S. 1997:156).

Denise N. Rall, PhD thesis, "Locating four pathways to internet scholarship" School of Env. Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 AUSTRALIA Tues: Room T2.17, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/ Virtual member, Cybermetrics Group, University of Wolverhampton, UK http://cybermetrics.wlv.ac.uk/index.html

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---------------------------------------- Caroline Haythornthwaite Associate Professor Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820