Last week I wrote a post called Coming of Age where I tried to articulate my discomfort with what I believe is a natural consequence of how the edublogging community has been growing. Namely, the advent of naysayers and critics who express their disagreement with the views or practices of others through personal attack.

It generated some comments, most of which were of a "cheer me up" sort of sentiment for which I'm grateful.

Graham Wegner both left a comment and continued the discussion on his own blog. This is my attempt to reply to the issues Graham raised.

The focus of Graham's comments revolve around my taking exception with a post by Stephen Downes called That Group Feeling and his definitions of groups and networks. Leigh discusses Stephen's views here and Stephen speaks about his views here.

In That Group Feeling Stephen objects to the formation of groups bound by emotional attachments where individuals are excluded from participation; often painfully. He relates this to schoolyard cliques; where being on the "out" side of the "in" group is exceptionally painful; particularly at a time in a young person's life when they are struggling with their personal identity formation. He extrapolates from this to unspecified learning theories that are detrimental to the growth and education of individuals who don't fit that(?) particular educational paradigm. In the video on Leigh's blog and in Stephen's talk he contrasts the concept of group with that of networks. Groups are exclusionary, requiring membership to belong, closed systems with a "leader" at the helm uniting individuals through their emotional attachments to each other or the group concept. A network is an open collection of autonomous individuals united by rational thought.

Graham asks: "What do you hear when you read that post?"

I hear a lot of effort poured into making a distinction that doesn't exist. A network is a group. In particular a network is a type of group just as a community is a type of group. Online learning is about the formation of groups with a particular goal: education. The sorts of groups teachers seek to orchestrate for their classes are communities of learners who network with each other to advance their learning. The lists Stephen draws up are all characteristics of different types of groups. To try and pin down the boundaries of a concept like "groups" leads to a sorites argument. ("How many grains of sand form a heap? One, two, three ... exactly where does the collection of individual grains make the leap into becoming a heap?" Answer: There is no answer. The concept "heap" does not have such rigid boundaries. Same with groups.)

Graham writes:

I'm still no closer to really understanding what community means to me.

Or to anyone else, for that matter.

I can only say what community, in this context, means to me.

The edublogging community is a group of people with a common profession that have certain attitudes and interests in common. It is an open, diverse group made up of autonomous individuals. It is a network of people (and groups) who come together to share their experiences, frustrations and successes with an eye towards improving themselves professionally and personally. Ultimately, we are all interested in the same thing: improving the education of the children in our lives.

The great strengths of this community lie in it's opennesss; anyone is welcome to join in the conversation. The nature of our online connections has resulted in a network of people most interested in each others thoughts and ideas; in stretching and pushing our thinking to explore the boundaries of our teaching; to extend ourselves beyond our comfort zones and take risks as we grow professionally and personally.

There are leaders among us. But the leadership changes as new voices join the conversation. And what counts as leadership among us is the willingness to share a new idea, a new pedagogy, a risk that we plan to take or have taken, to be transparent in the way we do our work in a profession that has historically been very closed and private with individuals working in isolation.

We each take our turn as leader every time we do something to extend the dialogue in the community. The K12 Online conference was an example of this. I may have been one of three people that helped nurture it to fruition, but I was not alone and the three of us were not the only leaders. Every presenter was leader. Every commenter who challenged the presenters was another type of leader. And the many people who volunteered to be moderators (many of whom had never been part of a skypecast before let alone been a moderator before) for When Night Falls, the closing event, were leaders who stretched the boundaries of their comfort zones.

One outgrowth of When Night Falls is that a group of teachers from all over the world plan to continue learning and sharing together in monthly adaptations of When Night Falls called When Night Starts Free Falling ..... The leadership of that event has nothing to do with Wes, Sheryl and I. The leadership has passed to Chris Harbeck for December. The community will figure out for themselves who will lead the next conversation.

This community has all the values and characteristics that the schoolyard cliques I grew up with didn't. I'm proud to be a part of it. And if anyone else would like to join it then all you have to do is the click the [comments] link below any blog post on the internet.

Come on in ... can't wait to hear what you have to say. ;-)