Are you a Lurker?

How do we design a Virtual Learning Community that is compelling enough that it will compete successfully for the attention of busy educators? ~ Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

I have never considered myself a lurker.

According to Dictionary.com, to lurk is to lie or wait in concealment, as a person in ambush; remain in or around a place secretly or furtively. It also means to exist unperceived or unsuspected.

Am I a lurker of the world wide web?

Reading Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach’s blog came me new insight to the word ‘lurk’. According to the blog, there is a model called the 4L Model which describes the roles and interactions of members of an online community: Linking, Lurking, Learning, Leading. As I read through the descriptions, I realized who I really was: a lurker. One who joins different online groups (nings, blogs, education communities…etc), occasionally participates in different discussions, webinars, and may even comment to some posts. However, that’s where I stop. I don’t involve myself deeper. I just lurk from one blog/website/wiki to another.

Reading on and having discussions with my colleagues on the possibility of seeing Virtual Learning Communities as professional development opportunities for teachers opened a whole new stream of thinking for me. Although the best PD days that I have the ones I have when given a chunk of time to sit and discuss curriculum with my own colleagues, I am absolutely in support of linking with other teachers in the ‘outside’ world. Time is ALWAYS an issue, but setting apart PD time to connect with other teachers online would open doors that we never knew existed.

Busy educators, in my opinion, still take time to continue to view or ‘lurk’ on different online platforms throughout the school day. The question then becomes: What makes these busy teachers go to some sites and not others? I’ve noticed where I work, many teachers go onto DiscoveryEducation and SmartBoard links. What they both have in common is the user-friendly feature of quickly finding information. Creating a VLC or a CoP should reflect the same type of user-friendliness. This can encouraged if given the chance to be done during the school day.


I am currently a lurker. I am hoping to get out of this phase and move on to being an online learner/leader. 