This article sets out to investigate the relationship between awareness information and participation in an online learning community (OLC). Inspired by the sociocultural notion of learning as social participation, this article will analyse the events that took place in an online photo gallery equipped with a system for visualising co-present users. The article discusses the importance of why social systems should support the creation, recreation and reinforcement of social norms to better facilitate participation. The article concludes by presenting four design implications of educational technologies supporting participation as well as a section referencing the importance of a transactional perspective in order to understand the effects of awareness information.