Online community learning is a ubiquitous form of learning. It is limited only by the requirement to have access to a device that can connect to the internet to make use of this anytime, anywhere concept. [1]

Joseph Moxely speaks of a place, a “datagogy”, where “crowds” of teachers, students, and administrators use social software to develop pedagogical communities that value and are fuelled by the “wisdom of crowds “[2]

It was this very idea of wisdom in numbers that led to the creation of the website 'Stackoverflow'. Described in its meta description as “the largest online community for programmers to learn, share their knowledge and advance their careers”. [3]

The core function of the website is that peers can pose questions to the vast programming community using the site on issues relating to computer programming. Solutions and explanations are offered to them by fellow peers. Peers may engage with the question in a number of ways. Multiple solutions may be offered by many different users. What is deemed to be the correct solution is 'upvoted' while other solutions may be 'downvoted'. Users may comment upon the question, often seeking further clarification for example to develop a greater understanding of the issue, this is to the benefit of all and improves the learning.

See this question expanded further :

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17/binary-data-in-mysql

Peers often link to supporting evidence that their solution works by using external sites to run computer code through the web browser.

Such is the popularity of the site that access to it can be found simply by typing a computer programming related question into a popular search engine. The returned search more than often will direct them to the Stackoverflow site. Monthly it has 101 million unique hits, 3.7 million questions asked and 4.6 million answered. [4]

It relies on this 'collective intelligence' to solve a problem that faced the programming community, of finding answers to difficult questions. [5] One example of a user's experience on using the service as a developing computer programmer was self-described as having gone from

• mostly reading answers (to gain knowledge and find answers to problems that I didn't have)
• mostly reading questions (to learn about what people are having trouble with in the frameworks that I know and use)
• mostly answering questions (to share knowledge but also my understanding about the frameworks and best practices) [6]

Any code submitted may be used by any user under the site's creative commons terms and conditions.

Now in its eight year this online learning community has flourished and has become a part of the learning process for many computer programmers with all levels of experienced users participating.

[1] Cope, B., and Kalantzis, M. (2016). Conceptualizing e-learning. In B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (Eds), e-learning ecologies. New York: Routledge (fortcoming).Chapter 1.

[2] Moxley, Joseph M., "Datagogies, Writing Spaces, and the Age of Peer Production" (2008). English Faculty Publications. Paper 127.

http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/eng_facpub/12 p.182

[3] http://stackoverflow.com/

[4] http://stackoverflow.com/company/about

[5] https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Case_Studies/StackOverflow.com

[6] http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/21965/learning-with-stackoverflow-com