How technology affects students' departures from online learning communities

Abstract

In online learning communities, graduations are both joyous and sad events when students must "disengage" from their shared experience. Using technologies to interact during online learning means that technologies have an effect on any social process, including disengaging. Even the simplest technology hurdles can affect people's departures from online learning communities. These effects of technology on disengaging have implications for the design of systems that support online communities. This paper explores the technology problems that students encounter in disengaging from online learning communities, and develops design implications for such communities. To set the stage, it provides a discussion of how online learners build and maintain their learning communities.