I would love to discuss building/creating a sense of community in an online class. Can it be done? How? What are the essential ingredients?

I believe community is essential to learning and especially learning to write, but what are the ways/means of creating community when your students may never meet face to face?

I use social media and activities gleaned/adapted from my National Writing Project experience, but would love to share and discuss ideas and experiences (the good, the bad, and the ugly).

I have successfully created communities in my online classes and experienced them as an online student, but this fall I will teach a first year seminar which means I will be dealing with students very new to online classes — I’m more than a little nervous about the experience.