Cultural capital and community development in the pursuit of dragon slaying (Massively Multiplayer guild culture as a model for elearning)

by Mr David White, Mrs Deborah Goodbody

This presentation is an evaluation of ethnographic field work conducted in and around the World of Warcraft MMO. The study focuses on the motivation of Guild members to construct communities of practice both to socialise and to. learn This suggests that the guilds can act as useful models for understanding how online social networks function and how they could influence the ideology of next generation elearning services.

Successful collaborative learning can only be sustained if the individuals involved feel part of a group or community in which they can trust. The most robust communities tend to be those that form via a collective aim or interest, their formation has a social underpinning and is not totally utilitarian.

If an aspiration of elearning is to move away from simply providing online programmes of study, demarcated by subject, to increasingly fluid spaces in which students can build social networks then we need to understand how contemporary collaborative and participatory environments encourage the formation of these types of groupings.

Some of the most sophisticated examples of online community creation and management take place in and around Massively Multiplayer Online environments. The current apex of this field is the 'guild' system which suffuses the World of Warcraft MMO. Guilds are effectively goal-oriented clubs or societies many of which utilise the latest Web 2.0 type technologies out of game and multi-channel text chat and VOIP systems in game both to organise and to socialise.

This paper is based on data collected over a period of six months from an ongoing ethnographic study comprising self-reflexive observation and semi-structured interviews conducted in World of Warcraft and face-to-face with guild members. This extends into a study of the social software used out-of-game by community members that act as a communication base for the guilds.

The data is evaluated considered using employing Wengers notion of communities of practice, which highlights the interweaving of goal-orientated learning and the immersion of those participating in trusted social networks. This has the effect of generating and communicating what Baudelaire calls cultural capital, the lack of which often makes online learning a poor second to traditional face-to-face learning.

The challenge here is how to abstract underpinning principles and practice that will be of value to elearning away from the immediate goals or ideology of a particular MMO. This is not to suggest that killing dragons in collaborative groups is the future of elearning. Instead it proposes that much can be gained from reflecting on the success of MMOs in motivating the formation of vibrant online communities and the ways in which these communities interweave socialising and learning.

The Short paper will be complemented by a poster .

ID Number: 1151

Date: Tuesday, 4th September 2007

Time: 1545

Location: East Midlands Conference Centre, Lecture Theatre

Theme: Learning technology for the social network generation