The concept of "telecommunities"

Along with "telecommerce," "telemarketing," and a host of other "teles," educators present the "telecommunity." It’s a simple enough concept. A community is create d digitally, using available digital and internet technology. It’s another incarnation of "virtual reality" – one of a host of new oxymorons every bit as oxymoronic as jumbo shrimp and freezer burn. The world wide web is host to many virtual cities, towns, worlds, and other fanciful creations where you can pretend to be something you’re not -- from another gender to a powerful ruler of many solar systems. These are, in a sense, "communities" which arise from the power of digital electronics and the communications expanse of the internet. These "communities" simulate an environment which either could not exist or in which we wish we could exist. And the key word is "simulate." Web sites and web cities allow the development of environments where fantasies can be explored safely and for recreation and fun. It’s not real, it doesn’t appear to be real, and it’s not really a community, if for no other reason that it’s disjointed, time limited, and vaporous.

Continuous digital communities

Imagine, however, a true digital community. Digital, but not virtual. A community that contains, even if partly simulated, the best elements of a community. There is interactivity in real time. One sees one’s fellows. One can talk, not type, to one’s fellows. One learns from one’s fellows. One conducts activities. And perhaps, ultimately, the community exists, even if composed of people from widespread parts of the world, almost all the time. Yes, it can be "turned off," because it’s digital. But even now the technology exists to keep a "telecommunity" up and on for long periods of time. Using today’s technology, it’s really possible for you to be, via digital video and sound, in many places at the same time along with a group of other people who compose, effectively, a community and there’s no reason it can’t happen for lengthy periods of time.

Distance learning as community

The new definition of "distance learning" (via proper digital community, now no longer itself an oxymoron) involves developing a digital community which simulates some activity which requires a community, which requires cooperation among a group of people. In effect, we are creating community by combining the capabilities of digital communication and the benefits and possibilities of simulation. And we learn from that kind of simulation. The NEW simulation. The digital community. Distance learning can now move beyond putting video of a city classroom into a school 40 miles out in the country and into the development of a new, artistic, creative paradigm. The digital community goes way beyond video conferencing. Anyone can video conference. Digital community involves the creation of real community among members linked digitally. It suggests cooperative activities, including learning, among the members of the community. It suggests mutual assistance, shared learning, learners as participants in the community

And then, the beauty of digital communities is that they can constantly be improved, modified, created, and recreated. In SHOELESS JOE, W.P. Kinsella’s novel on which the movie FIELD OF DREAMS was based, a fictional J.D. Salinger says "America has been erased like a blackboard, only to be rebuilt and then erased again." But that erasure and reconstruction happened naturally and haphazardly. In a digital community, practically overnight, we can erase and rebuild. We can use the technology to create what’s needed, when it’s needed, right away. We can create…that’s the point.

For educators, doing digital communities requires letting go of a few notions. It means making technology our friend, it means considering new paradigms of educational thought, it means recognizing that learning is often cooperative, that learners and teachers are part of the community, and that top down teaching is often not the most effective teaching method. Simulations are developed because some activity is just too dangerous in "real life" (one fears, is that a redundancy?) or too difficult to do in training situations. And yet, to learn something well, one must do it. That’s the use of digital communities to education. A learning activity involving a group can be simulated over wide distances in a digital community.

Technology now provides us a method for growing community over wide distance and scattered areas along with the ability to use that technology to simulate. For those involved in education, the limitations are not in the technology, but in the ability to use the technology creatively. Education becomes art and the artist of future is a technologist.

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