The ability for teachers to understand and add value to the comment ‘back channel’ is a key skill for the ‘connected teacher’. Anyone can swap an writing pad for a blog, there is no value in that. The back channel is the conversation, and is the heartbeat of thought.

I can’t think of another way in which teachers can get such immediate access to the ‘thinking’ process that is playing out in front of them.

<li>online learning communities are grown, not built </li> <li>online learning communities need leaders </li> <li>personal narrative is vital to online learning communities.</li>

<p>He gives a set of mantras for teacher/leaders in any online community:</p> <ul> <li>all you need is love </li> <li>control the environment, not the group </li> <li>lead by example </li> <li>let lurkers lurk </li> <li>short leading questions get conversations going </li> <li>be personally congratulatory and inquisitive </li> <li>route information in all directions </li> <li>care about the people in the community; this cannot be faked </li> <li>understand consensus and how to build it, and sense when it's been built and just not recognised, and when you have to make a decision despite all the talking.</li></ul>

Heretofore, instructional designers have thought they were in the business of designing instructional systems to meet prespecified learning objectives. But first the constructivist movement--and now communication technologies themselves--seem to be thre atening this conception as the sole way to support learning. People are learning without help from designed instruction! In many settings, in fact, "natural" learning is more prevalent than "designed" learning <a href="#resnick">(Resnick, 1987)</a>. We believe that the situation requires a reexaminination of our core roles. Are we in the business of designing instruction or are we in the business of supporting valuable learning, wherever it may happen? The answer to this question will result in either a narrow or broad interpretation of our role and its relationship to non-instructional forms of learning.

Our own belief is that dynamic learning communities are proper objects of study. We should seek to understand how such communities function, how they grow, how they can be nurtured, and how they can be replicated across diverse settings. But nurturing is different than designing. We must respect the integrity of the community. In time, we may come to think of ourselves more as <em>learning technologists</em> than as <em>instructional technologists</em>, and <em>learning support specialists</em> more than <em>instructional designers</em>.

How might faculty members use blogs to help their students reach particular learning goals? I use blogs to accomplish two goals in my courses: to facilitate serious communication and cooperation between students on course–related topics and tasks, and to generate efficient and meaningful class discussions.

The difference with blogs, and it is an important difference, is that students take possession of the class blog in ways they never did with these other products.