The document analyzes factors influencing participation in the Online Communities of Practice (OCOP), focusing on the Webheads in Action (WIA) group. Findings highlight the importance of community, tools, norms, and the division of labor among participants, emphasizing collaborative learning and respectful interactions. The study suggests areas for further exploration, including differences in engagement levels among members.

1. Factors affecting participation
in OCoP: A case study of
Webheads in Action (WiA)
Ali Bostancioglu
November, 2014

2. Contents
1. Introduction
2. Sociocultural learning and activity theory
3. Participants
4. Results
5. Conclusion and “What is next?”

3. 1. Introduction
 Aim: to find out factors affecting
participation in OCoPs
 Why Webheads?
 What did the study involve?
 Focus of the session (Interview findings)

4. 2. Sociocultural learning theory
 Learning is a social process that
occurs through our interactions with
others.
 Situated learning (Lave & Wenger,
1990),
 Distributed cognition (Hutchinson,
1995),
 Activity Theory ( Engestrom, 1987).

5. 2. Sociocultural learning theory
 Activity Theory: “Misnamed”
(Masterman 2008, p. 224)
 In fact, provides an analytical tool to
explore sociocultural learning

6. 2. Sociocultural learning theory
The structure of human activity system (Engestrom, 1987, 78)

7.  Any Questions so far?

8. 3. Participants
 69 survey participants
 24 interviews (ranging between 35 and
almost 2 hour).

9. 4. Results
 A) Community
 B) Tools
 C) Norms
 D) Division of Labour

10. 4. Results
 A) Community
 Who the Webheads are?

11. 4. Results A) Community
Gender

12. 4. Results A) Community
Native vs Non-native

13. 4. Results A) Community
Teaching in; 44 higher education, 15 High/
Secondary School, 5 primary school

14. 4. Results A) Community
 A diverse community members of which are
from all over the world (6 continents).
 Homogenous in that they are all interested
in learning about technology and it’s
educational applications (particularly in
language teaching).

15. 4. Results
 B) Tools
 Yahoo Group
 Learning2gether platforms
 Skype
 Google + and Facebook WiA groups

16. 4. Results- B) Tools
 Yahoo Group
 “This is the central channel, that’s why. I
mean if you follow the Yahoo Group then
you don’t really miss anything”
 “(E)verybody is there and eventually
everybody will read the message”
 “A lot of us started with the Yahoo group.
We like it because […] it works and it's
technologically friendly to most people”

17. 4. Results- B) Tools, Learning2gether
 “(B)ecause you can see people, you can
listen to them, you can you know visualize
what they are talking about through the
power points and all that and the photos
and drawings. So I think it's a very powerful
means of communication”
 Timing and date problems
 Flexible
 Catch up from recordings

18. 4. Results- B) Tools
 Skype
 More used by members that were
considered as active or core members.
 “I prefer Skype because it's very practical
uhm because we can start chat any time
you know that I am here at the computer. If
somebody needs me I am here”

19. 4. Results- B) Tools
 Google + and Facebook WiA groups
 Visually appealing
 No discussions taking place
 To follow events

20. 4. Results- B) Tools
 Google +, is it good for community
building? Yes/ No, why?

21. 4. Results
 C) Norms
 Support
 Politeness and respect
 Avoiding religious discussions
 Avoiding political discussions
 Avoiding spamming
 Regular meetings

22. 4. Results- C) Norms
 Support
 Social support (sharing emotions,
successes, sadness, holiday messages)
 Technical support

23. 4. Results- C) Norms
“Hi everyone,
I'm planning to do a newscasting project this Monday for my
Mass Media class. In the past, I've been using podomatic.
however, last year, I've encountered a few glitches with their
system which made class management a bit chaotic.
Are there free podcasting tools out there that I can use?
Easy sign up, easy recording, easy playback and feedback
(comments).
Thanks for the help.”

24.  That help request received a response
within 24 hours. Within the next day a total
of 5 different suggestions were provided to
the member seeking advice.

25. 4. Results C) Norms
 Politeness and respect
 “Politeness is at the top” within the WiA
community. Members “use ‘Dear [name]’”,
“say ‘Thank you!’ to show gratitude”, and “if
there is a problem or a situation, we always
say ‘We are sorry about these’ or ‘We
apologize for this’”.

26. 4. Results C) Norms
Respect “is something that [Webheads]
value”. Members have “ideas and share
ideas, you may like them or not and you may
discuss why you don't like this or the other
always respectfully”.

27. 4. Results C) Norms
 Avoiding political and religious discussions
 WiA community members “don’t talk about
politics or religion […] because [they] want
to be open to anybody”
 “We have always gotten along very well,
there are things that we don't discuss but I
think I don't discuss them ever. Things such
as religion, politics and so on…We avoid
these topics but we avoid them in a natural
way”

28. Further elaboration on avoiding
politics
 “Yeah or politics is ok if it has got some relevance to
teaching or to uhm methodology but if it's politics... Uhm
let's take an obvious example, the Israel and Palestinian
situation. If someone was to start saying 'Well Israel is
good because of this or Israel is bad because of that',
Vance would step and then say 'That's not what this list is
for'. We all know we have different opinions but it's just...
It's not a place where we want to have an argument. […]
We can have a vigorous debate about the pros and cons
of a particular teaching approach and people would
disagree and be quite strong in their disagreement so
that's okay but we don't do that for politics or religion for
example”

29. 4. Results C) Norms
 Avoiding spamming
 Regular meetings

30. 4. Results
 D) Division of Labour
 Volunteering
 Leadership
 Training opportunities

31. 4. Results D) Div. of Lab.
 Volunteering
 contributions to the WiA community is
“done on people’s initiatives”
 “So I thought that besides learning with the
Webheads, I needed to give my share
because I had learned so much with them
so I felt compelled to share with them and
with my network.”

32. 4. Results D) Div. of Lab.
 Leadership
 Core members seen as leaders
 But in general it was Vance who was
mentioned the most.
 He maintains the Learning2gether, makes
announcements, is the admin of the Yahoo,
Facebook, and Google + WiA groups
 He can use some help for the
Learning2gether events

33. 5. Conclusion & What is next?
 There is not one yet but to summarize I
tried to reflect on my findings today
 Look into more details of the differences
between different membership levels
 Lurkers vs Active and Core members
 Try and create a coherent story from the
findings

34. 6. Questions
Any questions?
 Are there any points that
people would like to add to or
clarify in case you think my
interpretation was wrong?

35. 6. Questions
Thank you!