Virtual Learning Communities in Organizations and Institutions of Higher Learning (original) (raw)
Related papers
Editorial: Creating, supporting, sustaining and evaluating virtual learning communities
Knowledge Management & E-Learning: An International Journal, 2011
This special issue is dedicated to creating, building, supporting, sustaining and evaluating virtual learning communities (VLCs) using emerging technologies. The contributors from diverse disciplines have come together to share their valuable experiences and findings through their research in the following themes: (a) instructional models, strategies, approaches for building, supporting and evaluating VLCs, (b) designing effective use of tools to promote discourse and scaffold peer interactions among members, (c) iterative processes and models of designing and evaluating VLCs; and (d) various variables concerning VLCs, such as virtual community behaviors, cultural factors, adoption patterns of tools. It is hoped that these articles will provide practical guidance and offer valuable experience to both educators and researchers who are interested in designing effective VLCs and examining various aspects of VLCs to advance our understanding of VLCs.
This special issue is dedicated to creating, building, supporting, sustaining and evaluating virtual learning communities (VLCs) using emerging technologies. The contributors from diverse disciplines have come together to share their valuable experiences and findings through their research in the following themes: (a) instructional models, strategies, approaches for building, supporting and evaluating VLCs, (b) designing effective use of tools to promote discourse and scaffold peer interactions among members, (c) iterative processes and models of designing and evaluating VLCs; and (d) various variables concerning VLCs, such as virtual community behaviors, cultural factors, adoption patterns of tools. It is hoped that these articles will provide practical guidance and offer valuable experience to both educators and researchers who are interested in designing effective VLCs and examining various aspects of VLCs to advance our understanding of VLCs.
Communities of Practice and Virtual Learning Communities: Benefits, barriers and success factors
2008
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.
Virtual Learning Communities in Higher Education
Human Factors
This chapter will examine the virtual classroom as a social constructivist educational space and identify whether and how a virtual ‘learning community’ emerges in different telecollaborative environments. A qualitative analysis of e-mails, field notes of in-class discussions, as well as a subsequent survey with open-ended questions have shown that virtual learning communities do materialize when certain preconditions are met, such as embedding virtual elements into face-to-face learning environments, sufficient monitoring by staff and the design of suitable learning environments that bring about multiple perspectives with the help of stimulating prompts and adequate tasks. For intercultural virtual learning communities, an important feature of foreign language instruction at higher education level, several success factors were identified, including a genuine interest in and commitment to the task and collaborators at hand, the willingness to engage in a discourse structure that res...
Cultivating Digital TLC -Teaching and Learning Communities
ModSim 2017, 2017
This study reports on an effort to create a sustainable, blended, mobile and online educational system for a U.S. based national vocational program. The research looked at the current ecosystems within each of the eight city sites before determining an ecological diffusion of technology approach. Organic methods were used to manipulate the adoption of blended, mobile, as well as online teaching and learning. A field observation approach where the researcher identified current states of paper-based models and small pockets of online learning like wikis and blogs, with an inability to model or scale those digital tools. Leveraging a modeling approach, a mobile first eLearning portal was piloted in a staggered fashion, leading to a 100% adoption amongst staff and students. The intentionality behind the modeling approach was to expand adoption to 400% to address semi-and non-academic components of the program. Key results allowed the organization to align its curriculum across cities, and build master courses to offer its corporate partners with quality standards. The flexibility of the organic adoption approach also increased multi-screen access, extending the content delivery and engagement beyond the confines of time and physical space constraints. Be it mobile or computer, the organization transformed learning from a solely instructor-led approach, to accommodate 'flipped' learning engagements, as well as supportive digital and portable learning communities. Through simulations, the organization was also able to incorporate social collaboration, mLearning and interoperable learning tools that cultivated and accommodated differentiated learning and development styles.
New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, 2017
Charlene Mutamba's article (2017, this issue) eloquently offers readers a scholarly genealogy that illuminates the synergistic nature between technology and human resource development (HRD) techniques as relative to the intricacies of organizational learning, learning organizations, virtual technology and virtual communities of practice. Indeed, the intersection of virtual technology and organizational learning is a popular topic of discussion with just about any entity, especially wherein the "teaching and learning" process is critical to the professional development and sustainability of the overall organization.
2015
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 e-learning could be generated as a side effect. Virtual communities of practice (CoPs) and virtual learning communities are becoming widespread within higher education institutions (HEIs) thanks to technological developments which enable increased communication, interactivity among participants ...
Designing Functional Virtual Learning Communities Using the Bola Ola Method
This paper explores how social media and the likes of Web 2.0 are gaining ground in e-learning and virtual communities. The paper argues that successful learning in virtual learning communities (VLCs) require cultural sensitivity given that technological tools in these communities were not originally designed for learning. The paper uses the dimensions of cultural variability to identify some of the cultural challenges in VLCs. Subsequently, the Bola Ola method is presented as a way to address cultural challenges and effective use of VLCs. Finally, implications are presented as well. Biographical notes: Bolanle A. Olaniran is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Texas Tech University. His research includes e-Learning, organization communication, crisis communication, cross-cultural communication, and technologies. He has authored several peer reviewed articles in discipline focus and interdisciplinary focus journals (i.e., regional, national, and international) ...
Journal of Educational Computing Research, 2006
This article examines the use of technology in higher education to support an international collaboration between 2 graduate seminars in cognition and instruction, one in Mexico and another in Canada. The culture of both seminars is described in the context of using computer mediated collaboration systems. The online collaboration between and within the 2 groups happened through the use of the communications tools available in WebCT, a Web-based course management system. The analyses reveal the discursive patterns between instructors and students in both settings, with an examination of teacher presence as it pertains to a cognitive apprenticeship perspective, with particular attention to teacher's modeling and scaffolding. We also present the nature of the student interactions in terms of the cognitive elements present in the discourse and the types of social interactions that support the community of inquiry model. Students in both seminars revealed high levels of critical thi...