I was both pleased, but surprised, to find a link to the University of Oklahoma Community space in the marketing email that went out this morning (we get regular marketing emails every week). Here’s the screenshot:
It would be SO GREAT if OU Canvas users started participating at the Community. I’ve been faithfully crossposting this blog there for months now… although at this point, my main reason for doing so is that the blog posts show up in the Canvas Community search, not because there is an OU Community there.
And why is there no OU Community? Because nobody participates. Literally. There are probably dozens of people working on the Canvas rollout at my school: people in IT, people in our Center for Teaching Excellence, people who do teaching support in all the different colleges, not to mention the hundreds of faculty who are actually using Canvas.
But if you go to our OU Community page (which I do every day), you will see that there’s nothing going on except for my crossposted blog posts:
My guess is that if any faculty do follow the links in the email, they will look for the people they know in the Community: the lead Canvas managers from the Center for Teaching Excellence, the lead Canvas people in their colleges… but they will not find those people there using the Community, demonstrating its value, showing how it’s useful, etc.
To build a community online requires participation and persistence from people who are committed to building the community and sustaining it. Just sending out a marketing email with a link in it does not a community make.
But we’ll see! I have found the Canvas Community to be incredibly valuable (like in this total revelation about Canvas Pages and Files last week), and I have enjoyed the opportunity to crosspost my blog here.
So, I will remain optimistic and hope that something might happen in the OU Community space in Canvas. And I’ll keep on cross-posting. Because I am a believer in DIY… and in the power of online communities!
Growth Mindset Cat knows:
Life has no remote. You have to get up and change it yourself!
Crossposted (ever hopeful) at OU Canvas Community.
