ABSTRACT
A group of 9 graduate students and one faculty member formed an extra-curricular study group to explore the social nature of online learning. Following a review of literature and adopting Strauss's (1993) framework for coming to understand social activity, the group collected and analyzed interview reports of experiences of social learning and online systems. The results include five categories of responses: 1) task engagement, 2) social engagement, 3) environment engagement, 4) goal or motivation and 5) role of expert. The paper presents the positive and negative statements about social engagement and the role of expert in gaming and learning experiences and in online and face-to-face experiences.
