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In order to explore how informal pedagogical moments are being renegotiated by the technology woven into people's lives, this paper aims to focus on online communities as sites of learning; more specifically, the informal work‐related learning practices of self‐employed workers in these cyberspaces.

This paper draws on the notion of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) from situated learning theory in order to examine the development of work‐learning practices online. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with own‐account self‐employed workers (contractors and consultants who do not have staff) about their engagement in online communities for work learning.

Findings indicate that these self‐employed workers were learning work practices, the viability of doing particular work, how to participate in online communities for work learning, and how to participate in fluid knowledges. The significance of developing a work‐learning practice is emphasized, as is the impact of multiple and peripheral positionings across on‐ and offline spaces.

Web technologies and shifting configurations of online collectives shake up notions of expertise, beliefs about who is able to produce, and consume information, and where one locates themselves, in order to build work‐learning practices. Multiple positioning across several online communities, and ways of participating that are peripheral, partial and part‐time warrant further examination.

The value of this paper is its exploration of how self‐employed workers develop an online work‐learning practice and the tensions that these practices bring. The paper also attempts to discuss the utility of LPP for contemporary learning practices.

This paper seeks to explore how workers engage in informal online communities for work‐learning. Although online communities may facilitate learning and knowledge creation, much of the literature is situated in formal online courses, suggesting a need to better understand the nuances of more informal learning spaces online.

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 11 own‐account self‐employed workers (contractors and consultants who do not have staff).

Participants engaged in ways that fit with expectations, leveraged fluidity, played with boundaries, and meshed with work. These workers attempted to (re)configure online spaces to create the degree of connection and learning needed, although not always successfully. This study explores how participants participated in much less pedagogically inscribed spaces and foregrounds several issues related to online engagement: managing exposure, force‐feeding community, and navigating multi‐purpose spaces.

There are indications that these workers are moving toward more networked architectures of online participation. How the notion of online community continues to evolve warrants further research.

Although turning to an online community is sometimes the only viable learning option, online presence brings challenges to be addressed by practitioners and policy makers, including attending to the nature of relationships in and between different cyberspaces, information and media literacies required, and the implications of such extensive connectivity between people and their web‐technologies.

By exploring how adults reach out to others in “informal” online communities for learning purposes, this paper encourages researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and citizens to consider tensions and questions associated with cyberspace collectives.