Preface K. Ann Renninger and Wesley Shumar

Foreword: virtual communities for learning and development: a look to the past and some glimpses into the future Michael Cole

Introduction: on conceptualizing community Wesley Shumar and K. Ann Renninger

Part I. Types of Community: 1. The mystery of the death of Mediamoo: seven years of evolution of an online community Amy Bruckman and Carlos Jensen

2. Female voices in virtual reality: drawing young girls into an on-line world Ann Locke Davidson and Janet Ward Shofield

3. Community building with and for teachers at the math forum K. Ann Renninger and Wesley Shumar

4. Learning in the virtual community depends upon changes in local communities Beverly Hunter

Part II. Structure and Community: 5. Evolution of an on-line education community of practice Mark S. Schlager, Judith Fusco and Patricia Schank

6. Building social networks via computer networks: creating and sustaining distributed learning communities Caroline Haythornthwaite

7. Mask and identity: the hermeneutics of self construction in the information age Dorian Wiszniewski and Richard Coyne

8. WISE learning communities: design considerations Alex J. Cuthbert, Douglas B. Clark and Marcia C. Linn

Part III. Possibilities for Community: 9. Reflexive modernization and the emergence of wired self-help Roger Burrows and Sarah Nettleton

10. Understanding the lifecycles of network-based learning communities James Levin and Raoul Cervantes

11. Learning in cyberspace: an educational view of virtual community D. Jason Nolan and Joel Weiss

12. Finding the ties that bind: tools in support of a knowledge-building community Christopher M. Hoadley and Roy D. Pea

Afterword: building our knowledge of virtual community: some responses David Hakken

Afterword: building, buying, or being there: imagining online community Steven G. Jones.