Online communities

• People use online communities to socialise, share information, play video games, work, learn and create.
• Each type of online community has:

  • a function- which is what it does for people who use it.
  • features- which enable or allow it to achieve it's function.
• Social networking is the practice of forming groups in a society. Humans have been doing this for a long time before computers were invented. However, the internet has provided new ways for us to form social networks e.g. Facebook, Twitter etc.
• When creating an account with a social networking community, you can add information about yourself and some services even allow members to decide which informaion should be made public, should be only visible to specific people or not visible at all.
• A collection of a user's information is known as a profile.
• Profiles can be personalised by members and they can include:

  • your name, gender, date of birth, location and laguage
  • a short description about you
  • details about the user's work and education
  • travel history
  • contact information such as telephone number, email address and wesite
• Different social networking communities have similar features that allow users to add someone to their social network. They can be known as friend, follow and connect.
• Online work spaces exist so that members of the community can collaborate together for the purposes of work.
• Features that support the functions of online work spaces include:

  • cloud storage and web applications
  • comments that can be left on documents for other users to see and reply to
  • chat rooms to allow discussion of work
  • shared contact lists
• Virtual learning environments (VLE's) are used to allow students and teachers to use learning and assessement materials. E.g. Pearson active teach, Google classroom, Moodle, Schoology and Blackboard.
• Features that enable the function of VLE's include:

  • a notice board for announcements about the course
  • the ability to share audio, video, web links or files
  • a wall or timeline similar to those on social networking communities that contains posts by teachers and students