Communities and Participation

This chapter explores the closely related concepts of “communities” and “participation” as they relate to the field of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). We describe how these terms have become foundational to work in CSCL, both in terms of theory development and for understanding how to design effective CSCL communities. In our review of the state-of-the-art, we highlight how rapid technological developments have created new opportunities for more meaningful and advanced forms of participation in communities. We conclude with our challenge to the future direction of the field, describing how notions of participation in communities are currently being renegotiated within the conception of the “spatial turn.” In the era of “big data” that includes exhaustive records of educational data in formal and informal spaces, we caution our CSCL colleagues to remember our theoretical roots and humanistic values as we move forward and continue to shape the future of CSCL.