This thesis project seeks to define and understand the boundaries and practices of online maker communities as sites of arts learning and teaching that exist outside of traditional educational contexts. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s notion of a community defined by a gathering of peers, I suggest that Maker communities rely on shared values in relation to the practice of making through open source educational models which utilize the internet as a public space of participation in contrast to the restricted access of the academy or earlier apprenticeship models. I argue for an understanding of maker communities that is separate from replication focused DIY content through their emphasis on community members being able to contribute incremental changes or development to ongoing, collectively designed, but individually created projects.