The AstroLrner E-Community: A 10 Year Retrospective

Abstract

The article briefly describes and documents the development and evolution of the AstroLrner (pronounced a-stroh-LEARN-er) online Yahoo! community, created by Tim Slater on August 29, 1999, on its 10 year anniversary. The goal for AstroLrner was to leverage the then emerging social networking technology to build and nurture the nascent community of scholars engaged in improving the quantity and quality of astronomy teaching and learning through education research. Today, known as AstroLrner@CAE, this vibrant e-community has nearly 800 subscribers and averages nearly 300 posts per year.