Abstract
Our lives have become more complex and time-fragmented than ever before. Interactions with other people are compartmentalized to small packets of information via the phone, email, and sometimes face-to-face. The opportunity to interact and socialize informally with other people (inside or outside work) is reduced because of our time-fragmentation. The increase in fragmentation is often blamed on technology, but that same technology can also be used to alleviate our time limitations as well as help to increase social interaction outside our work and home environments. The use of technology to support students coping with time-fragmentation can be seen in distance education programs. Internet delivered distance courses use technology as a medium to transport assignments to and from the instructor. Incorporating the advantages of technology as a tool for interaction can reduce the negative effects of fragmentation by diminishing the time-space variable. Creation of an online third place—an informal, public, conversational space that is not a home or workspace—allows distance students the opportunity to interact and learn. Online learning environments provide all the elements needed to build a third place. The communities of practice concept also address the need to complete a project or other deliverable—a key difference between a learning environment and traditional third places. The communities of practice, as in Senge's learning organization, emphasize working toward a shared goal, increasing effectiveness and efficiencies in the context of a product, service, or outcome (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002). As the growth of distance education and the Internet continues, designing courses utilizing the advantages of current technologies provides a unique opportunity for educators and learners.