virtual learning communities

Virtual Learning Communities

New means for collaboration and for generating innovative pedagogical approaches as part of e-learning and online learning service provision.

Kennet Lindquist, CEOSwedish TelePedagogic Knowledge CentreMinerva Virtual Community Development Coordinator

Abstract

Two unique virtual learning communities have recently been established within Socrates, one for Minerva focusing mainly on e-learning and one for Grundtvig program focusing mainly on Lifelong learning.

These two virtual communities are engaging more than three thousand learning professionals already after less than six months of operation, and the membership volume is rapidly growing.

Besides its prime focus and the attractive constellation of professionals, which includes basically every partner organisation within the two EU programmes, the service environment used by these communities contain some very unique

and powerful 'service engines‘ worth studying closer.

Abstract, cont.With the VCP 'service engines' it is possible to move learning networks, community initiatives and other forms of collaborative e-learning beyond the traditional characteristics pedagogically senile e-learning and conferencing platforms used in the past for online learning services towards a new and more vivid learning services.

Through the unique sets of VCP 'service engines' it is possible to build participative pedagogical scenarios into the learning events, and to design collaborative activities that has an in-built pedagogic strategy and deliberate pedagogical designs – a pedagogy that is determined by the service provider and not tacitly being imposed by the particular platform or portal used for the learning services.

The presentation ambition

This presentation will highlight the structures and facilities of the Virtual Community Platform (VCP) used by the Minerva and Grundtvig virtual communities, illustrate how collaborative initiatives are be handled within this service environment (Part I)

… and how the pedagogical VCP tools can be utilized to generate true learning environments and take on online interactions beyond traditional static and passive web pages, unintelligent file transfers and plain message transactions (Part II).

VCP is able to establish pedagogically oriented partnerships, both between learning service providers as well as between the users.

PART I VCP as a Collaboration Tool

The Minerva Virtual Community

The Minerva project actor community

Minerva community services

An example of a MVC community application

Examples of other VCP-driven communities

VCP-engines available to the communities

PART II VCP as a Pedagogic Tool

Examples of pedagogical re-orientation of e-learning and learning service provision

Community of practice learningMcDermott, Wenger and Gongla/Rizzuto

Knowledge creation perspective on learningNonaka/Tagushi, Engeström, Bereiter (KM)

Adaptive conversational learningBailsford/Moore/Stewart/Zakaria (WHURLE)

Collaborative discovery / progressive inquiryLiinonen/Virtanen/Hakkarainen/Lipponen (FLE/CSILE)

Personalized, socially aware, active learningAngehrn/Nabeth/Roda (K-InCA)

Building social/personal knowledge artifacts Stal, Herrman, Koshmann (KBE, Web Guide)

FLE4ALL – Community-based lifelong learning accommodating the new pedagogical demands

Member engine (enabler)

Interact engine (enabler)

Inquiry engine (enabler)

Engage engine (the core)

Composer engine (enabler)

Assign engine (enabler)

Monitor engine (enabler)

The pedagogical RubikEnablers = color pages/elementsCore = Interconnects the elements

Profile Ref #Survey introduction

Conditional Online Survey

Reply Ref #Survey conclusion

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Dev: Inquiry Response

Imp: Consequence Rpt

Inquiry Response Definition

Dev: Inquiry Block

Dev: Inquiry Item

Dev: Inquiry Item

Imp: Item conseq.

Imp: Item conseq.

Imp: Block conseq.

Dev: Inquiry Block

Dev: Inquiry Item

Dev: Inquiry Item

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Imp: Item conseq.

Imp: Block conseq.

Inquiry StartInquiry Start AdditionInquiry Start Addition

Inquiry Block #

Block StartBlock Start AdditionBlock Start Addition

Inquiry Item #

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Item EndInquiry Item #Item Start

Item AdditionItem Addition

Item End

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Inquiry End AdditionInquiry End Addition

Inquiry End

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Consequence Title

Conditional responseConditional response

Unconditional endConditional end

Unconditional startConditional start

Consequence calculations

InquiryResponseelements:

Main structure of the dynamic inquiry service

Illustration of the assessment service components of the inquiry engine

State Timing Relevance Comparison

Prior encounter with another inquiry

Actorvariables

Situationvariables

Organisationvariables

Participant”profile”

Interative presentations(web pages, multimedia, uploads)

Inquiry intervention(choices, selections, contributions)

Relevance indications(hiding, limited visibility, inactivity)

’Barometer’(assets)

Parameter-driven Inclusion’Context’

Range of Inquiry elements

Externalconditions

Internalconditions

Assetconditions



Prior encounter with another inquiry

Actorvariables

Situationvariables





Relevance handling(hiding, limited visibility, inactivity)




Externalconditions

Internalconditions

Assetconditions



+ Prior encounter with another inquiry

Actorvariables

Situationvariables





Relevance handling(hiding, limited visibility, inactivity)




Externalconditions

Internalconditions

Assetconditions

Actor variables Org. variables Context variables

Essential conditions for ……. (in dimensions)

C-#1 C-#2 C-#3

I-1a

I-1b

I-1c

I-1d

I-1e

I-1f

I-1g

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I-2g I-3g I-4g I-5g I-6g

Indicator: xxxxx x xxx xxxx xxxXxxx xxx xx x x xx xxx xx xxx xx xx xx xxx xxx xx x x x x x xx xxx x x x xxx xxx xx x x xx x x xx xxx x x x xxx xxx xx x x xx x x xx xxx x x x xxxxxx xxx xx x x xx xxx xx xxx xx xx xx xxx xxx xx x x x x x xx xxx x x x

Role &Responibilities

Links to info resources

Practices & Examples

Reference documents

Continuum

Benchmarking

An example on VCP usage for audits/assessments

Essential Condition #3Indicator

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Dimension D:


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Dimension B:

Condition #3 Indicato

Condition #4

Condition #2

Dimension A:

Actor var. Org. var. Context var.

Condition #1

Survey introduction


Survey conclusion

# Block title

Block introduction

Block conclusion

# Item title

# Item title

# Block title

Block introduction

Block conclusion

# Item title

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Inquiry StartInquiry Start AdditionInquiry Start Addition

Inquiry Block #

Block StartBlock Start AdditionBlock Start Addition

Inquiry Item #

Item StartItem AdditionItem Addition



Item End

Block End AdditionBlock End Addition

Block End

Inquiry Block #


Inquiry End

Block End

Consequence TitleConsequence calculations

InquiryResponseelements:

A contextualised and scenario-based inquiry

An expanded application of the inquiry service

Example of interconnectivity between engines in a virtual learning community

Survey introduction


Survey conclusion

# Block titleBlock introduction

Block conclusion

# Item title

# Item title

# Block titleBlock introduction

Block conclusion

# Item title

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Inquiry StartInquiry Start AdditionInquiry Start AdditionInquiry Block #

Block StartBlock Start AdditionBlock Start AdditionInquiry Item #Item Start




Item EndBlock End AdditionBlock End Addition

Block EndInquiry Block #


Inquiry End

Block End

Consequence TitleConsequence calculationsInquiryResponseelements:

ENGAGEENGINE

COMPOSERENGINE

Inquiry by collaborative groups(Joint walk-through, Comparive benchmarking)

Collaborative and conversational knowledge production

Summary features of the ‘Engage engine’

Collaboration based on content contributions made by one or many

Involved users reflect, reply, comment and interact with the content

The ‘engagement coordinator’ defines the interaction context and the contributive roles.

The coordinator function can be shared, and both contributions and comments can be made multi-lingual.

‘content contributors’ define interaction capabilities per item

Involved members can besides commenting, reply, characterize comments, state preferences or vote, create associations or converge contributions, analyze patterns and interact with others

Content owner can conclude, close and interlink sessions, share ownership and generate associations across contributions

Summary features of the‘Compose engine’An interactive outliner and distributive content generator handling text, multimedia presentations, linked and uploaded external content

The ‘composer coordinator’ defines modality of the collaborative composing process, contributor access and usage rights and sets conditions and visibility levels for different levels or user categories.

A coordinator can assign content responsibilities to any combination of users or groups, item-by-item, and stipulate timing and other conditions for the content generation process.

The coordinative functions can be shared, and contributions can be multi-lingual and with automatic language preference recognition.

‘Content contributors’ owns their contributions and can define interaction capabilities for users, review usage levels, get progress report on items assigned to them, and even delegate it to others.

Invited users can interact with the content in ways composed by content providers and use similar services as in the engage engine.

Illustration of a collaborative inquiry within a ‘virtual learning community’

Community ofactors use theEngage Engine

Community ofactors use the

Compose Engine

Joint production

PART IIIVCP as YOUR Tool

To be covered by questions and further discussions after the presentation / during

the conference

End of presentation

My contact data:

[email protected]

Swedish TelePedagogic KnowledgeCentre

Tel: +46-155-214222 Fax: +46-155-287872

virtual learning communities

Documents

lifelong learning

learning professionals

learning nonakatagushi

learning events

learning networks

learning service providers

senile elearning

online learning services