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Thursday, March 20, 2003

Greetings from Horsham, PA. I'm here ahead of a SMART Master's Train-the-trainer session for the SMART Board(TM) interactive whiteboard, for the Hatboro - Horsham School District.

A couple of days ago I made a post to our course conference in CTL 1799 in which I stated that I'm more "cautious" when making posts to the course conference than I am to this blog. I said at the time that I'm not exactly sure why this is, but don't think that it's a matter of trust, or lack thereof on my part, for my course colleagues.

I've been thinking about it since I made the post and have some thoughts about online forums and comfort levels when it comes to posting. One theme that's arisen during group conversations is the notion of online learning communities as "infants" or "toddlers."

I'm becoming more comfortable with the interfaces (First Class and WebKF) used for "on-line distance education" at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT). I believe that I'm "maturing" as a "citizen" of this on-line community.

Some discussions we've had in CTL 1799 suggest that on-line education, if not in its infancy, is at the "toddler" level in terms of development. I think there is a parallel for this on-line learner. I think that one needs to "mature" as an individual in order to be a contributing member of online communities.

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