Well, perhaps not entirely a change of direction, as many of you have been considering, problematising and representing “community” in relation to your work on the MOOC responses. That may provide a helpful bridge into our second block of work on the course.

So, welcome to week six, when we turn our attention from “popular cybercultures” to exploring “virtual communities”.

Along with reading and tumblogging, your task over these three weeks is to identify a community online, and do a piece of micro-research on it, drawing on the principles of virtual ethnography. The readings will support you in this, and we also invite you to brainstorm, ask questions, and discuss your plans in the Hub Forum (ps – you need to join the EDC January 2013 Hub group to post to this forum). Remember that this forum, like the rest of the course environments, is public, so you can link to it from tumblog entries if you wish.

Speaking of tumblogs, you should all have received your mid-tumblog feedback via email last week – if you haven’t received this, or have any questions, please contact your tutor.

Have a great week, everyone!

Diary of a teaching machine, an EDCMOOC image by [ Ed ], cc:by-nc-sa, http://www.flickr.com/photos/-ed/8475339873/