What a week!

Well, week one has been flying at lightening speed. I have not been feeling well and reading was near impossible for a few days (GI bug). While initially I was overwhelmed and wasn't sure if I was going to understand all of the new terminology in the assigned readings, I quickly became engrossed in them. The material is written like a story and is very interesting to the novice in this area. I have never blogged before nor have I been a part of any on-line community before my OU education.
I found the best definition of community to be the definition provided by Bruckman and Jensen in the Mystery of the death of MediaMoo. A community, whether it be "real" or "virtual" is in its simplest terms people interacting with one another. Individuals choose how active a role they will partake in their community, and the community will flourish or falter depending on its participants for life.
One benefit of a virtual community that we do not always have in our real communities is the ability to choose which communities that we want to be a part of. If you live on a certain street, go to a particular school, or frequent the same stores you are automatically a part of that real community. In a virtual community, you get to choose to be a part of a community that shares specific interests with you.
The only experience that I have with virtual communities is through the ANGEL system in the OUHSC. In this community I have developed relationships with many colleagues that I would never have had the opportunity to even know existed otherwise. In this community we have grown and developed as nurses, educators, and individuals through sharing our experiences. We support each other, help each other to solve problems, and cheer each other on semester after semester.
I live in rural Oklahoma and it truly would have been impossible for me to commute to OU to work on my MSN. I must admit that in the beginning, I just knew that on-line education was going to be terrible. No personal interaction, no human elements, just read and write.....WOW, was I ever wrong. I soon learned that there was many human elements to on-line learning, that I was quickly developing friends in my courses, and that this was a much more challenging educational experience than I had ever experienced before. I used to be the quite student that sat back, never asked a question, and rarely participated. Don't get me wrong...I'm not dumb....just a little shy. I soon found that you could not sit back, in the on-line classroom, you must participate. Much to my surprise, I also found that I was OK with this new role. I find it easier to talk with my professors and classmates because I have time to read, synthesize, and then formulate responses or questions. I feel prepared and I do not feel intimidated. The virtual community really does empower us to become whatever we want to be just as described by Shummar & Renninger in the introduction.