Technology-enabled learning communities

This article is a content analysis of 23 selected articles with the aim of presenting a theoretical framework of dimensions and indicators of online and offline social learning in groups of teachers. The starting point is the three overarching perspectives of social learning: social networks, communities of practice and learning teams. Wenger et al. (2011) distinguish between a community as a partnership with a common agenda and a network as a set of connections between people (Wenger et al., 2011).

Bandura's social learning theory is based on the idea that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. Attention, memory, reproduction and motivation are necessary conditions for learning through modeling.

Summary

While much research notices the change in teacher’s roles and the need for increased focus on ‘twenty-first century skills’, there is little research exhibiting proven methods for achieving such change. We know that twenty-first century skills are in competition for time with traditional curriculum items such as basic reading and math. This means that twenty-first century skills must be developed not in competition with, but alongside and integrated with the ‘traditional’ skills.

Zhang, S, Liu, Q, Chen, W, Wang, Q and Huang, Z.  (2017) Interactive networks and social knowledge construction behavioral patterns in primary school teachers' online collaborative learning activities, Computers and Education, Vol 104, pp 1-17.

The fundamental idea of Communities of Practice (CoPs) is that learning is ongoing and social rather than discrete and individual. This idea has its origins in social learning theory, which explores how people learn in a social setting (Bandura 1977). Lave and Wenger’s model of situated learning (1991) took this concept a stage further by considering the impact of the structural framework in which the social learning takes place.

We have a contention that technology can enhance communities of practice in a variety of ways and there are many examples from practice in the MESH guide. In particular, we are thinking about about Wenger’s ideas about the interplay of participation and reification: talking and doing:

Two complementary processes for learning in an community of practice (CoP): participation and reification (making something real). (Wenger, White, and Smith, 2009, p. 57).

Column 4 moves towards application to practice by looking at a number of pedagogic strategies for technology facilitated social learning. Key points include consideration of the way in which online learning communities represent a continuous crossover between the real and the virtual spheres; and the idea that learning within the community is everyone’s responsibility and that this can be described by the cognitive apprenticeship and technology stewardship models.

Column 3 consists of summaries of a number of key studies in the social learning field.

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