A Cross-organizational Ecology for Virtual Communities of Practice in Higher Education (original) (raw)
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ICERI2011 Proceedings, 2011
Advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) as well as modern pedagogical perspectives have created new possibilities to facilitate and support learning in higher education (HE). Emerging technologies bring opportunities to reconsider teaching and learning (Coto, 2008). New ideas and concepts about the educational use of new technologies transform the roles of teachers. In this context the key question of this study is: whether learning as part of a (virtual) community of practice supports teachers’ technology professional development. Different learning alternatives such as distance learning, workplace learning as well as blended forms of learning will enhance lifelong learning which forces a rethinking of traditional forms of education. However, most institutions for education foster just-in-case learning while new technologies foster just-in-time learning (Schrum, 1999; Collins & Halverson, 2009). As a result of new learning perspectives and the potential pedagogical benefits of ICTs in educational contexts, teachers have to learn how to integrate new technologies in teaching and learning. Putnam and Borko (2000) recommend that teacher professional development should be situated in multiple learning settings in which learning is teacher-centred. Next to classroom settings and cross-institutional learning communities, virtual learning communities (VCoPs) are a significant source for learning. There is an overlap between the educational values of interned-based learning and social theories of learning such as Lave & Wenger’s (1991) situated learning theory and Wenger’s (1998) theory of communities of practice. Drawing upon these theories, offers a perspective on social learning that emphasizes social processes within (V)CoPs where community participants engage in collective learning and knowledge creation. The data discussed in this paper have been drawn from a cross institutional setting at Fontys University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands. The data were collected and analysed according to a qualitative approach. The paper concludes that VCoPs are learning environments since these network-based learning communities push learners to take more control of their learning and provide tasks which are more contextualised and meaningful.
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The need for a Web portal to support the rapidly growing field of learning technology has been well established through a number of national surveys and scoping studies over recent years. The overarching vision has been the provision of a virtual environment to assist in informing and developing professional practice in the use of learning technologies. This paper outlines the issues and challenges in creating such a portal through the experiences of developing the RESULTs Network. In the paper, design and participation issues are considered within the wider context of online and networked approaches to supporting practice and professional development. User participation methodologies and technical developments for RESULTs are described in relation to a review of existing representations of practice and a comprehensive survey amongst the learning technology users' community. An outline of key achievements and experiences is presented, followed by some conclusions regarding the cultural and political issues in creating a viable and sustainable facility and suggestions for possible future direction in national provision.
Communities of practice: A sphere of influence enhancing teaching and learning in higher education
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The use of new information and communication tools such as; Web 2.0, social networks, wikis, blogs continues to grow for learning in higher education. More and more instructors worldwide have already started incorporating these tools for their course delivery and pedagogy. The growing literature suggests that virtual communities of practice (CoPs) and virtual learning communities (VLCs) are becoming common for collaboration and sharing resources due to the emergence of Web 2.0 tools and other social networks within higher education institutions. This exploratory study examines the existence of such communities of practice or learning communities in higher education particularly among business school instructors. The data is collected through phone and e-mail interviews with academic staff. The preliminary findings suggest that business schools professors have still not become part of CoPs and VLCs
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Forming communities of practice is an important approach for knowledge sharing and well-designed communities of practice may provide mechanisms for innovation in Open, Distance and eLearning environments. However, the specific guidance to establish communities of practice in higher educational institutions does not always exist. The question further remains how willing are the students to share knowledge within communities of practice at institutions of higher education in order to empower learning and knowledge sharing within those institutions. The aim of this article is to explore the attitudes of 502 students at an open distance e-learning higher education institution or university towards communities of practice. The study applied a quantitative approach using a questionnaire and descriptive and inferential statistics to analyse the responses. The students were invited to engage in learning activities within communities of practice. They were free to decline to participate in this research study, and could withdraw their participation from the study at any time. Returning the completed questionnaire to the researchers indicated their willingness to participate. They preferred online forms of communications. The findings can be used to analyse relationships among communities of practice knowledge-sharing enablers and students' willingness to engage in communities of practice processes. This study described several implications essential to successful learning and knowledge sharing through communities of practice. 1 Increasing numbers of ill-prepared students with inadequate study skills are entering open and distance e-learning (ODeL) environments and performing their study tasks in socially isolated contexts. ODeL in general involves the use of online tools and infrastructure that are currently not well-designed to satisfy the needs of students with varying learning skills and experiences (
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British Journal of Educational Technology, 2008
Higher education institutions (HEIs) are largely built on the assumption that learning is an individual process best encouraged by explicit teaching that is, on the whole, separated from social engagement with those outside the university community. This perspective has been theoretically challenged by those who argue for a social constructivist learning theory and a more collaborative approach to learning. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) afford lecturers and students an opportunity for extending the boundaries of a learning experience, not merely beyond the lone individual, but beyond the limits of discipline boundaries within a specific university community and beyond the institution into the local community. This paper illustrates how a collaborative effort between lecturers and students from the Computer Science and Education Departments at Rhodes University, teachers from the local community, the provincial Department of Education and a non-governmental organisation developed into an unfolding virtual and physical community of practice which enabled ICT take-up in a number of schools in the Grahamstown District, South Africa. This discussion of what has become known as the e-Yethu project provides an example of how ICTs, underpinned by the insights of social constructivism, the notion of ‘community of practice’ and in particular Hoadley and Kilner's C4P Framework for Communities of Practice, can serve to help HEIs understand ways in which ICTs can provide opportunities for developing collaborative learning within HEIs, and between the HEI and the local community.
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A virtual Community of Practice (CoP) is a network of individuals who share a domain of interest about which they communicate online. The practitioners share resources (for example experiences, problems and solutions, tools, methodologies). Such communication results in the improvement of the knowledge of each participant in the community and contributes to the development of the knowledge within the domain. A virtual learning community may involve the conduct of original research but it is more likely that its main purpose is to increase the knowledge of participants, via formal education or professional development. Virtual learning communities could have learning as their main goal or the elearning could be generated as a side effect.
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This short paper describes work in progress on the C2 Learn project intended to create a Virtual Community of Learning (CoL) in two European Universities in different countries (United Kingdom and Portugal) and then to develop its use. The teams are conducting literature reviews on virtual CoLs in general and on their respective countries in particular. In addition the teams are researching and exchanging information about each others’ institutions, facilitated by prior collaborative work and independent research discussing aspects of e-learning within their respective establishments. As a result of previous collaborative work (Gannon-Leary & Fontainha 2008) the teams have identified and examined the benefits, barriers and critical success factors relating to Communities of Practice (CoPs). Now they are revisiting these in the context of CoLs.
Communities of Practice: guidelines for the design of online seminars in higher education
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This paper focuses on the Community of Practice (CoP) concept and its implications for designing online seminars in the university context. Student learning in seminars at universities is seen as peripheral participation in a particular scientific community -one of the many knowledge-creating CoPs that constitute a university. Introducing information technology into university education thus should be measured by the degree to which these new ways of teaching enhance students' access to scientific communities. This framing view of university education is connected to a social theory of learning where learning is seen as an essentially social, situated phenomenon. The concept of 'legitimate peripheral participation' in a community of practice is used to derive a design framework for online seminars. Using this framework, we implemented an online seminar on the topic of organizational knowledge management at the Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria. The GroupWare platform BSCW (Basic Support for Cooperative Work) was used for the exclusively asynchronous communication during the ten-week course. Of particular interest were the ways in which students, invited guest experts and the instructor interacted without ever meeting face-to-face.