I missed the first section thanks to a phone call so check out Nancy’s blog http://www.fullcirc.com/weblog/onfacblog.htm or Full Circle Associates - http://www.fullcirc.com/
The Tensions of Online Collaboration
Individual - group/network
although we/ teachers conceptualise groups of learners as groups, the majority of time it is individuals physically working individually. Continuum between inds and group.

Participation and Reification
language from CoP language - participation balanced by the reification - systems, methods, language, artifacts, maps, concepts, tools, documents - ease of publification has increased rate and volume of reification.

Togetherness and Separation in time and space - How much togetherness or separateness will create the learning outcomes you desire? How much togetherness or separateness is necessasry to keep it moving forward?

Control and Emergence - changing to more of a horizontal plane than vertical structure. Less experience - generally people need/want more control. As they develop - you want to set them free and draw on the wonderfull world of possibility. Where we have to measure, we need to have some way to control that.

Tools have an impact on the group - bloggers want others to prove through their writing, discussion forums about group conversation with individual voices, wikis are about a communal voice.

Slide - showing the tools in the way they work - I’m guessing these slides will be available online shortly as Nancy is normally very quick with that sharing. Description of slide in case it doesn’t appear - Axes of interacting and publishing, other axis asynchronous and synchronous - internal circle group, external group individual. Scattered around the graphic are a whole collection of tools that are available to us to use. Slide created by Nancy, Etienne Wenger, John Smith (http://www.cpsquare.org/)

Introducing wikis to scattered group - teleconference talking people through using the wiki - what was most valued was opportunity for group members to get to know each other and build their feeling of togetherness. This led to much greater use and participation on the wiki. Did recordings of phone calls which were available for download. Also community started to build minutes for group sessions on the wiki so the group built the minutes using the tool - became part of their way of working.