Online Learning Communities in Secondary School Environments: Social Constructivist perspective

8/6/2019 Online Learning Communities in Secondary School Environments: Social Constructivist perspective

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/online-learning-communities-in-secondary-school-environments-social-constructivist 1/31

1

Nathan Hutchings © 2009

Online Learning Communities in

Secondary School Environments:

Social Constructivist perspective

Thesis submitted as part of the degree of Master of Education (Leadership),

The University of Queensland in 2009

School of Education




2


Table of Contents

Preface ........................................................................................................................................ 3 ICTs, The Social Web and Schools ........................................................................................... 4 Vygotsky and Social Constructivism ......................................................................................... 6 Vygotsky Key Concepts ............................................................................................................ 8

Zone of Proximal Development ............................................................................................. 8 Mediation of Meaning.......................................................................................................... 11 Language and Thought ........................................................................................................ 12

Communities of Practice .......................................................................................................... 13 Online Communities ................................................................................................................ 15 Online Communities of Learning ............................................................................................ 21 Where do we go from here? ..................................................................................................... 25 References ................................................................................................................................ 26



3


Preface

This essay will discuss the importance of understanding and supporting the growth and

development of online learning communities in secondary schools. The theoretical approach

that will be used to frame the discussion will be Social Constructivist with specific reference

to Vygotsky’s key concepts of Zone of Proximal Development, Mediation of Meaning and

Language and Thought. Before discussing Vygotsky and Social Constructivism the impact of

the Internet upon education and society will be canvassed including the recent emergence of a

more socially interactive Internet, Web 2.0. Following this, Vygotsky’s key theoretical

concepts will be outlined then what constitutes a community of practice will be defined. In

addition, online communities and online communities of learning will be described in detail.

After having outlined the societal and educational impacts of the Internet, discussed key

Vygotskian concepts, described communities of practice, online communities and online

communities of learning Vygotsky’s key theoretical concepts will be used as a lens to focus

on future research possibilities of online learning communities within secondary schools.



4


ICTs, The Social Web and Schools

The World Wide Web (WWW) has become a major global depository of information

offering unparallel access to a large and growing store of human knowledge with a “60,000%

increase in the quantity of available information in less than 10 years” (Lawless & Schrader,

2008, p. 222). Schools and homes that are not connected to the Internet are fast becoming the

exception rather than the norm (ABS, 2007, 2008). The ubiquitous mainstreaming of the

WWW and proliferation of wireless internet connectivity now enable individuals and

learning communities to communicate almost unfettered by time and place (Huett, Moller,

Foshay, & Coleman, 2008). In addition to the exponential uptake of Internet use, the nature

of the Internet has recently undergone a metamorphosis from an information and

entertainment delivery channel to a global interactive social space that cannot be ignored by

educators (Solomon & Schrum, 2007).

The Internets shift from a passive to a social and interactive medium is referred to as the

WWW moving from Web version one to Web 2.0 (O’Reilly, 2005). Web 2.0 has created new

ways for people to learn and communicate online, tools such as Podcasting, VodCasting,

Wikis and Blogs are beginning to be used tentatively by educators (Hsu, 2007; Lamb &

Johnson, 2007; Mindel & Verma, 2006; Solomon & Schrum, 2007). In addition to recent

developments in online communication tertiary intuitions are placing more and more of their

learning material online enabling students to complete postgraduate and undergraduate

degrees exclusively via the WWW (see e.g., http://ocw.mit.edu/ ; www.swinburne.edu.au;

www.deakin.edu.au). Many of these Universities libraries are also incorporating interactive

web based technologies like online chat, RSS feeds, and online booking and renewal of loans

(e.g., www.library.uq.edu.au) or use social tagging services such as http://delicious.com to

aggregate links to useful sites for students (see e.g., http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/ ). Web 2.0

social networking applications like FaceBook (www.facebook.com) are ubiquitous among

University students, and increasingly teenagers and other general computer users are heavy

users of social networking applications (Golder, Wilkinson, & Huberman, 2007). Despite the

arguments that decry the academic merit of the knowledge on the WWW the following is

certain; it is a social phenomena, it is both an asynchronous and synchronous discursive

http://ocw.mit.edu/

http://ocw.mit.edu/

http://ocw.mit.edu/

http://www.swinburne.edu.au/



http://www.deakin.edu.au/


http://www.library.uq.edu.au/



http://delicious.com/



http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/



http://www.facebook.com/









http://ocw.mit.edu/



5


space, people invest large amounts of time and emotional energy in creating content for it and

many people are gaining access to the WWW at an increasingly younger age (Finger, Russell,

Jamieson-Proctor & Russell, 2007; Lacina, 2007; Pegg, Reading, & Williams, 2007).

The continued development Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and

specifically the Internet have changed the way people communicate and view the world.

Solomon and Schrum (2007) reported that students view technology as a necessary tool for

learning and it is so embed in their way of communicating that it directly affects how students

live and communicate and when, where, and how they learn. Students increasingly expect

that learning occurs in concert with ICTs and are somewhat baffled when teachers view ICTs

as something novel, something to be bolted on to teaching and learning. Despite this many

students and teachers do use online sources to find information, expand their knowledge base,

and enrich their lives. However, schools have not kept up with the growth and potential of the

WWW or the more recent shift to Web2.0.

So why are secondary schools lagging behind the rest of society when it comes to openly

engaging with World Wide Web and ICTs? Groundwater-Smith, Brennan, McFadden, and

Mitchell (2001) report that change in secondary schools is often painfully slow and crisis

driven and often superficial. In addition Wellington (2005) also reports that rigid

organizational patterns and forms of schooling are not conducive to ICT innovation and any

ICT innovation is smothered by structural rigidity of schools. To create schooling that is

relevant for the 21st

century learner and connected with the digitally interconnected world

outside schools, there is a need to move from traditional paper based learning to a digitally

based operational paradigm (Lee & Gaffney, 2008). However, despite these criticisms there

does appear to be a slow paradigmatic shift spurred by exponential developments in ICTs and

more recently the WWW.

Current research by Meier (2009) indicates an increased uptake in the use of ICTs in

secondary schools and a shift towards a growing recognition that the use of ICTs increases

student engagement, supports new and innovative approaches to learning and can also be

used as a tool and process for developing new ways of learning and thinking. In addition,

Solomon and Schrum’s (2007) publication, Web 2.0 new tools, new schools and Leading a

digital school edited by Lee and Gaffney (2008) provide hope that Cranston’s (1999) call for

a re-invention of the craft of teaching and re-engineering of schools is being heard.



6


Furthermore, publications by Finger, Russell, Jamieson-Proctor, and Russell, (2007), Egbert

(2009) and Thorsen (2009) all indicate a paradigm shift in the educational community a shift

that recognises the

“…rise of information and communication technology (ICT) in schools is

unstoppable, and developments in ICT encapsulate broader trends in education. ICT

touches every aspect of education, building in new networks of teachers and driving

new paradigms of teaching and learning, and putting teachers and students in contact

with each other on a truly global scale.” (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2004, p.59)

Educational change is happening, albeit slowly, and the change is coming from within the

ranks of teachers spread across the globe who are using the WWW to create online

communities to discuss the use of ICTs in education and learning, for example

http://www.classroom20.com/ , which provides a place for teachers to discuss the use of

emerging Web 2.0 tools in their classrooms. These online communities are dynamic and the

constant interactions between members via text, audio and video cause the emergence of new

knowledge and the questioning of established knowledge and practices; these communities

socially construct knowledge. To analyze and understand these communities, and support

their continued growth, it is necessary to utilize a theoretical approach that has at its core the

idea that knowledge is socially constructed and the use of language in all its textual, signified

and spoken forms is the primary tool for the creation, communication and mediation of

knowledge and meaning. The theoretical approach that encompasses these core ideas is the

Social Constructivist theory of Lev Vygotsky.

Vygotsky and Social Constructivism

Social Constructivism is founded on the idea that people collectively impose meaning on the

world (Ormrod, 2006). One of the founders of Social Constructivist theory was the Russian

psychologist Lev Vygotsky who was born in 1896 and died in 1934. It was not until the mid

to late 1970s, due to Soviet suppression, that the work of Vygotsky became widely available

in the West but since then Vygotsky and Social Constructivist theory has been widely used in

education, psychology, and the social sciences (Newman & Holzman, 1993).

http://www.classroom20.com/





7


To understand Social Constructivism it is important to first understand the place that the

individual takes within Vygotsky’s philosophical-psychological frame work. Vygotsky’s

work helps us to resolve the bridge that connects the individual to the social what Rio and

Alvarez (2007) refer to as a, “no-mans land, generally left uncultivated and unexplored in

dualistic approaches” (p. 282). Social Constructivists see the social as preceding the

individual this precedence provides an epistemological bridge on which the individual comes

to know itself and according to Robbins (2001) individual consciousness itself originates in

society. Therefore to understand the formation of individual knowledge one must first focus

upon the social context in which the individual is situated. To understand the inner mental

processes of an individual the social constructivist investigates the socio-cultural context in

which humans are situated (Van Der Veer, 2007).

Learning and knowledge are a social phenomenon, not solely created by the individual in

isolation, disconnect from peers, friends and society (Grandin, 2006; Paslincar, 2005);

knowledge is also in a continual state of flux, dependent on the social meanings and

discursive practices embedded in society at large and via immediate social and professional

communities such as school, peer groups, family (immediate and extended), and more

recently online and virtual communities (Grandin, 2006; Hedegaard, 2007; Iriberri & Leroy,

2009; Lave & Wenger, 2005; Van Der Veer, 2007; Yue, et al., 2009). Grandin (2006) states

that knowledge is a social phenomenon and that to understand the origin and development of

higher order cognitive processes it is necessary to understand that they have their origin in

social processes. Therefore, the construction, modification, and repudiation of knowledge are

the result of a symbiotic relationship between the individual and the social, a relationship that

generates an epistemological friction from which situated individual knowledge emerges.

And so, to gain insight into the development of higher cognitive processes the social and

cultural milieu is the first place to look.

Individuals inhabit varying social and cultural milieus and construct meaning as they

experientially interact within them. These cultural milieus are permeated with numerous

formal, such as school, and informal, such as family, contexts and, “through both informal

conversations and formal schooling, adults convey to children the ways in which their culture

interprets and responds to the world” (Ormrod, 2006, p. 34). To complicate matters such



8


contexts are not fixed and the meanings that the learner derives from them change, “in

response to the person’s actions, capacities, age, and so on” (Van Der Veer, 2007, p. 23). For

example, the attention that a six-year-old child would pay to an adult is very different fromthat of a teenager even though the cultural knowledge that is being discussed may be similar

or identical. Within such contexts adults, and others, act as mediators of meaning with the

primary tool of mediation of social meaning and social experience being language; language

that is presented in a myriad of forms, spoken, written, visual, symbolic, and musical.

The social world is the source of ideas, facts, skills and attitudes (Finger, Russell, Jamieson-

Proctor, & Russell, 2007). This world is the crucible for the formation, challenging and

repudiation of new of existing knowledge. The individual brings to an existing social context

their own interpretation of existing knowledge and when this comes into contact with socially

constructed knowledge individual knowledge is transformed, created or left unchanged.

Vygotsky’s theoretical concepts elucidate this dialectic between the individual and society an

interplay of how the individual perceives their current state of knowing within the social

context in which they are situated and how this social context reflexively creates the known

within the individual. To understand the reflexivity of the social and the individual it is

necessary to discuss Vygotsky’s key concepts in more detail.

Vygotsky Key Concepts

The key concepts that Vygotsky developed during his career were, the Zone of Proximal

Development (ZPD), Scaffolding for Learning, Mediation of Meaning and the link between

Language and Thought. Of these four key concepts ZPD and Scaffolding are the most

familiar to contemporary teaching practice and often studied by new teachers and form part

of their theoretical understanding of teaching and learning. To fully appreciate the utility of

Vygotsky’s key concepts for 21st

century ICT enriched teaching and learning it is necessary

to review each concept prior to explaining how Vygotsky’s ideas can explain and support

online learning communities in secondary school environments.

Zone of Proximal Development

The ZPD encompasses the tasks that the individual cannot yet perform without assistance; the

gap between what has already been mastered and what can be achieved with support. The aim

of the educator is to discover what has already been mastered, preventing needless repetition



9


of already mastered tasks and develop learning experiences that move the learner towards the

formation of new knowledge and mastery of new skills.

…the zone of proximal development. It is the distance between the actual

developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of

potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance

or in collaboration with more capable peers. (Rio & Alvarez, 2007, p. 278).

The ZPD is one of Vygotsky’s most commonly referred to concepts by educators and

psychologists. However, ZPD according to Rio & Alvarez (2007) is often misunderstood

because it refers to “developmental courses or trajectories” (p. 278) these courses and

trajectories are mistakenly viewed as fixed linear categories which can be used to compare

and classify a learners progress. The important difference between ZPD and other

psychological theories of mental development is the ZPD is described prospectively and is

framed in such a way to implicitly create opportunities to describe what is currently known

and how this can be linked to what can be known; “the notion of a zone of proximal

development enables us to propose a new formula, namely, that the only good learning is that

which is in advance of development” (Rio & Alvarez, 2007, p. 279).

Vygotsky did not advocate the use of standardized test to ascertain current levels of mastery

rather learners were encouraged to explain their understanding of concepts with others who

had greater proficiency (Rio & Alvarez, 2007). By explaining their current understanding of a

particular area of knowledge learners in conjunction with others who have demonstrated

mastery in the area being investigated come to understand gaps in the learner’s knowledge.

During the process of discovering a student’s ZPD, and because it is defined prospectively,

opportunities for extending learning rather than classifying and labeling student potential arecreated. Having identified gaps in the learner’s knowledge the teacher creates a learning

experience focused towards the zones upper limit. By focusing on the zones upper limit the

learning experience becomes a means to expand the learner’s ZPD and over time the learner’s

zone becomes richer with new knowledge and skills which in turn support further expansion.

However, describing what knowledge is within a learner’s ZPD is problematic because a

child’s ontological framework could be extensive. To describe a learners pre-existing

knowledge it is useful to view knowledge in two conceptual frames, scientific concepts and

spontaneous concepts.



10


Daniels (2007) describes Vygotsky’s concept of “scientific concepts as those that were

introduced by the teacher in school and spontaneous concepts as those that were acquired by

the child outside of the contexts in which explicit instruction was in place” (p. 310).Scientific concepts are concepts that “form a coherent, logical hierarchical system” (Daniels,

2007, p. 311). Scientific concepts are explicitly taught and in conjunction with spontaneous

concepts form an interdependent relationship and the basis for new concept formation.

However, scientific concepts delivered by one way verbal communication and devoid of

context result in rote learning of words rather than meaning.

… the child learns not the concept but the word, and this word is taken over by

the child through memory rather than thought. This mode of instruction is the basic

defect of the purely scholastic verbal modes of teaching which have been universally

condemned. It substitutes the learning of dead and empty verbal schemes for the

mastery of living knowledge. (Daniels, 2007, p.312).

It is how the scientific and spontaneous are bought together within a learning experience that

creates new concept formation a growth in knowledge. Describing the ZPD by using

scientific and spontaneous conceptual frames provides a teacher an overarching frame of

reference to describe the learner’s knowledge in a prospective manner. Using this frame of

reference to define a learner’s knowledge boundaries is very valuable; however, it is the

combination of understanding what the individual cannot yet perform without assistance and

then closing the gap between what has already been mastered and what can be achieved by

the use of Scaffolding that creates an optimal learning experience.

Scaffolding for Learning

The ZPD provides a survey of the learners’ current state of knowledge but it is scaffolding for

learning that allows both the learner and the teacher to traverse the known and head towards

the unknown. The ZPD in conjunction with Scaffolding for Learning are key pedagogical

concepts for creating effective learning environments as ZPD delineates what is known and

what is to be learnt and Scaffolding for Learning provides the necessary support for the

student to expand their knowledge of a domain. Scaffolding is a term used in general teacher

parlance but care should be taken when using the term Scaffolding for Learning as its

meaning is dependent upon the theoretical framework in which it is discussed.



11


The elements that are used to create Scaffolding for Learning successfully are the learners

already established knowledge and skills and the use of language and shared experiences.

Christensen (2001) reported that Russian psychologist Davydov (1975) found three teachingstrategies useful for Scaffolding learning when teaching mathematics. The first approach was

to ask leading questions to “prompt students to think about a concept in a new and productive

way” (Christensen, 2001, p. 71). Questions would be phrased in a manner that limits the

amount of yes and no responses and encourages more reflective dialogue. The second

approach discussed by Christensen was for teachers to stage mistakes, “by deliberately

posing an erroneous conclusion” (p. 71). In doing so students hopefully recognize the error

and in discussions with the teacher and their peers explain why the conclusion that has been

reached is incorrect. And the third approach, clashing, similar to staging a mistake but

entailed the presentation of students work that when examined closely reveal a

misunderstanding of basic concepts and “provide an opportunity for interaction which

encourage children to explore, extend and justify their understanding” (Christensen, 2001, p.

72).

Daniels (2007) reports that the key idea of Davydov’s approach is the realization that

theoretical knowledge is central to the development of learning and without it learning

becomes transmission of isolated and meaningless facts. Therefore, to create Scaffolding for

Learning it is essential for the learner to “develop a capacity for relating to problems in a

theoretical way, and reflect on one’s thinking.” (Daniels, 2007, p. 315).

Mediation of Meaning

Mediation of meaning is described as central to Vygotsky’s cognitive psychology and is a

process divided into two forms meta-cognitive mediation and cognitive mediation (Karpov &

Haywood, 1998). Metacognitive mediation has its origins in interpersonal communication,

for example, a child learns from its parents via verbal instructions and in time these

instructions are externally verbalised (egocentric speech) eventually these verbalisations are

internalised (inner speech) and form the basis of self regulation. Research by Winsler and

Naglieri (2003) supports Karpov and Haywood’s (1998) interpretation of Vygostky’s concept

of the transformation of egocentric speech in to inner speech .Winsler and Naglieri’s

comprehensive study included a large scale representative sample of 2,156 children between



12


the ages of 5 and 17 years. They found that

“The developmental progression from overt to more covert types of private speech

observed here is consistent with Vygotskian theory and the existing longitudinal and

cross-sectional private speech literature.”(Winsler & Naglieri, 2003, p. 672)

These internalised verbalisations form a set of psychological tools which the individual,

“transforms natural impulses into higher mental processes” (Robbins, 2001, p.35). Cognitive

mediation is the acquisition via verbal instruction of problem solving methods which can be

applied to specific knowledge domains for example; a young student learns how to conduct

an experiment using the scientific method and in doing so acquires a functional

understanding of the application of a specific approach to problem solving. In contrast to

constructivist views of cognition Vygotsky believed that children should acquire scientific

concepts via precise verbal definitions which contrasts Piaget’s staged development of

cognition in which children gradually acquire scientific understanding via direct experience

(Ormrod, 2006).

Language and Thought

The common thread that binds Vygotsky’s cognitive psychology and social theory is

language. The active use of language, speaking, and thinking for social constructivists are

inexorably bound together and each cannot exist without the other for Vygotsky, “thinking

and speaking are not linearly, causally, teleologically, purposefully or functionally related;

they are dialectically unified by meaning” (Newman & Holzman, 1993, p. 51). Meaning

making is the process of the intertwining of thinking and speech, language is the key humantechnology that is both thought in action and the transmitter of collective social memory and

knowledge.

A word without meaning no longer belongs to the domain of speech. One cannot say

of word meaning what we said earlier of the elements of the word taken separately. Is

word meaning speech or is it thought? It is both one and the same time; it is a unit of

verbal thinking. It is obvious, then, that our method must be that of semantic analysis.



13


Our method must rely on the analysis of the meaningful aspect of speech; it must be a

method for studying verbal meaning. (Newman & Holzman,1993, p.51).

Therefore verbal meaning when transmitted to the individual directly impacts and

modifies the subjects’ cognition this is the process of meaning mediation in action. If we

take the Social Constructivist view that; knowledge and consciousness have their origin in

the social, language and thought are bound together to form meaning, meta-cognitive and

cognitive mediation of meaning is reliant upon speech then Social Constructivist and

Vygotskian theory provide a theoretical frame work ideal to the analysis of socially

constructed knowledge.

Communities of Practice

Social and professional communities give meaning to interpersonal interactions and provide a

milieu to seek understanding of knowledge that is new or problematic. Communities of

practice (CoPs) greatly assist teachers to discuss their approaches to teaching and learning.

Often these CoPs are of an informal nature such as a social get together after work or a shared

group morning tea or lunch within or across faculties. However what is common amongst

most if not all CoPs is that members all share a passion about a certain topic and have the

desire to deepen their knowledge by meeting on an ongoing basis (Verburg, 2006).

Within these communities of practice individuals confer with peers and experts to clarify

their understanding, crystallize concepts and build on prior knowledge and within these

communities verbal and textual discourses work together to delineate understandings about

specific points of knowledge, topics and things;

Cooperating employees develop a shared repertoire of routines, vocabulary, stories,

symbols, artifacts, and heroes that embody the accumulated knowledge of the

community. This shared repertoire serves as a foundation for future learning

(Verburg, 2006, p. 15).

CoPs have a shared interest in a domain of knowledge, a desire to improve their

understanding of this domain and to learn from others; CoPs are also communities of learning

which reflect the fundamental social human capacity and drive to socially construct



14


knowledge (Wenger, 1998a). The artifacts that are created by CoPs are email

communications, verbal conversations, newsletters, construction of professional development

courses and journal articles in trade and academic publications. These artifacts become theshared knowledge and memory of a social group a body of knowledge that is constantly

drawn upon by the community. New member to a CoP engage in the practice of studying a

communities journals attending their professional development courses resulting in a gradual

acculturation of the individual to accept a CoPs paradigm (Kuhn, 1996).

Wenger’s (1998) description of CoPs learning occurring at the core and on the boundary of

the community dove-tails with Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) when

applied to a community of learners, the limits of the groups knowledge is analogous to an

individual’s upper limit of their ZPD. The core within CoPs is the center of expertise defined

by the sum of information contained in various manuals, procedures, written

communications, policies and shared understandings of how to get things done. The boundary

of a CoP is the face the community shows to the world, it is the first point of contact between

other CoPs and divergent bodies of knowledge.

Wenger (1998b) describes the CoPs boundary as the location where new insights occur and

ignoring this can cause a CoP to become insular leading to the ossification of its core

knowledge. In order to explain how new insights emerge at the knowledge boundary of a CoP

Saussure’s (1959/1985) concept of the linguistic sign and the process of semiosis, the

production of meaning via the dyadic of the signified and the signifier resulting in the

creation of signs. The CoPs boundary can be likened to a permeable membrane constantly

absorbing new knowledge, language being the medium within which the CoPs signs,

meanings and concepts come into contact with external signs, meanings and concepts. New

insight or serendipitous semiosis occurs when there is an incongruity of signified concepts at

the boundary of a CoPs. Similar concepts clash when there is confusion or disagreement at

the point of signification which is the point at which the signified, the form which the sign

takes, and the signifier, the concept it represents. The use of the concept of semiosis on the

CoPs boundary provides a theoretical micro analytical tool to drill down from the macro view

of the group meaning making.

Group meaning making is the process of the intertwining of thinking and speech with

language as the key human technology that is both thought in action and the transmitter of



15


collective social memory and knowledge. In order for organizations to take advantage of

CoPs and support their continued growth they need to understand the processes that drive

semiosis and meaning making within a CoP. Wenger (1998b) notes that value of a CoPappreciates when its core and boundaries actively complement each other. Therefore,

organizations need to develop the capacity and processes to support the continued growth of

CoPs in order to take advantage of their learning potential.

Increasingly CoPs that are wholly online or supported by Information Technology are the

subject of investigation (Hara & Ling, 2005). Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002) also

report that it is common for online CoPs to arise across organizational and company

boundaries in the rapidly changing Information Technology industry so members can keep

abreast of change.

Online Communities

Online communities are the result of public online interaction between individuals on a going

basis; social aggregations that over time develop a critical mass of emotion so thatparticipant’s feel a sense of belonging, concern and friendship with other members of the

online community (Reingold, 1993, 1998). More recently the term Virtual Communities and

Online Communities are often use interchangeably. However, the term Online Communities

predates Virtual Communities as it has its origins in describing the socially interactive

textually based activities of computer users that predate the development of the World Wide

Web, specifically graphically based browsing software (Reingold, 1993, 1998; Iriberri &

Leroy, 2009). The term Virtual Communities does not restrict itself to internet based

communication it also includes telephone and newsletter based communication media and

members usually do not meet face to face. For the purpose of this essay the term Online

Communities will be used because it relies on computer networks as the primary

communicative medium.

Kim (2000) and Wenger (1998) suggest that online community participants go through a five

stage process that define how they are viewed by other online members and the level of

commitment and participation they demonstrate to a particular online community. Initially

participants start as lurkers, visitors to the community who pop in for a look around and do



17


into the technologies and ideological perspectives that have driven the development of online

communities.

Iriberri and Leroy (2009) conducted an extensive literature review of online communities’

research to indentify common measures and approaches for building successful online

communities; the review was restricted to articles published from 1993 to 2007. The review

encompassed the disciplines of computer science, information systems, psychology,

sociology and management and was restricted to peer-reviewed articles. The key search terms

used where online communities and virtual communities and the databases searched were

PsycInfo, Sociological Abstracts, ABI/INFORM, ACM Portal, IEEE Xplore, and AIS Digital

library. One of the results of Iriberri and Leroy’s (2009) structured literature review was to

indentify four overlapping waves of online community research activity spanning from 1993

to 2007 with each wave characterized by an increased amount of discipline specific research

activity.

The first wave of research activity occurred from 1993 to roughly 1996 and was driven by

sociological investigations with the primary focus begin online communities as a social

phenomena. During the first wave Iriberri and Leroy (2009) found that sociologists turned

their attention to investigating how the internet affected how individuals interacted with

society. During the first wave Iriberri and Leroy (2009) noted that researchers indentified

positive effects of internet use such as increased social capital and encouraging civic

participation, decreased social isolation for individuals and opportunities for increased parent

to teacher and teacher to teacher communication via online communities. During the second

wave 1996 to 2002 management researchers investigated how online communities could be

used to identify customer needs, build customer loyalty, improve marketing and conduct

transactions online all with the aim of increasing profits and reducing transaction costs.

Iriberri and Leroy (2009) also noted that during this period management researchers

investigated how online technologies are used to support communities of practice, store

organizational knowledge and improve project management practices (Wenger, McDermott,

& Snyder 2002).

During the third wave, 2002 to 2007, of online community research activity psychologists

focused on how individuals developed relationship via online communities. These studies

investigated how people formed attachments to online groups and the formation of



18


relationships that sometimes transferred to face to face interactions and long term

relationships. The fourth and ongoing wave of research, 2002 to date, was lead by

information systems researchers. According to Iriberri and Leroy (2009) these researcherssought to integrate prior research perspectives to create more empirically based research

agendas to support the ongoing development of online tools and approaches to improve

online teaching and positive outcomes for online community participants.

Overall Iriberri and Leroy (2009) found that most researchers from all of the four waves

agreed that the greater the number of messages exchanged in an online community the more

successful a community is. Preece (2001) in particular provides a number of metrics to

measure online community success and divides these into two frame works, sociability and

usability. Within the frame of sociability Preece (2001) indentifies three criteria, purpose

people and policy. Purpose is measured by how much interactivity is occurring and the

quality and quantity of these interactions. The criterion, people, is a measure of the number

of participants in a community and the range of age, experience and roles these people have.

The criterion, policy, includes both formal and informal guidelines that outline community

governance and guide how people interact. The second frame, usability, includes the design

criteria dialogue and social support, information design, navigation and finally access. The

Dialogue and social support criterion measures the time it takes to send and receive messages

and how these messages are managed by the system and the users. Information design

measures how long it takes for users to find information and their ability to retrieve and

remember the same information at a later date. The navigation criterion within the usability

frame measures the length of time it takes a user to navigate their way through the site to get

to where they want to go. Finally access measures how long it takes to download and run any

additional software required to participate in the community.

Preece’s (2001) measures when applied to an online community yield a rich data set and

importantly many of the criteria can be measured by unobtrusive means such as server logs.

However, Preece (2001) warns against using individual criteria to draw conclusions and

recommended triangulation of the gathered data with data gathered by other methods for

example, survey and interview approaches. The combination of a triangulated set of data as

suggested by Preece (2001) with the inclusion of Wenger (1998) concept of an individual’s

two step process of negotiation of meaning provides the basis for the construction of a rich



20


outcomes that individuals initially sought to avoid. Online narrow cast communities that have

a focus on health issues can result in users constructing their identity around their illness

resulting in a reduced capacity for users to seek well informed treatment options. An extremeexample of a troubling narrowcast community is boylover (http://www.boylover.net) which

despite the best efforts of many concerned parents and legislator is still online, (see

http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/resources/internetsafety.html ). This community’s sole purpose is

to support and try to defend predatory homosexual pedophile activity and is an unfortunate

example of the power of narrow cast communities to attract and perpetuate dangerous

behaviors at great social cost to the community. In spite of the dangers of narrowcast

communities identified by Parsell (2008) online communities that support people through

serious illness are here to stay and do provide a life line to those in the greatest of need, an

example of this is the Australian Cancer Council (see http://www.cancer.org.au/Home.htm ).

http://www.boylover.net/



http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/resources/internetsafety.html


http://www.cancer.org.au/Home.htm








22


transcend traditional approaches to teaching in realization that online teaching and learning is

different, be interactive and available 24/7, incorporate both asynchronous and synchronous

means of communication, include content that is media rich, be a place students and teachersgenuinely want to meet and frequent and also be responsive to learners and teachers changing

needs.

Herrington et al. (2006) call for a synergistic approach to online learning and at its core

authentic tasks should be used to drive the design and delivery of online and distance

education. The key to a successful online learning course according to Herrington et al.

(2006) is it must be learner centered, utilises problem-based learning, incorporates computer-

supported collaborations and has learning activities that are authentic or relevant to the

learners. Herrington et al. (2006) approach does not simplify the process of developing online

learning materials but provides, according to its authors, a firm theoretical base to build

online courses. Their approach breaks an authentic task into three elements, Learners, Task

and Technologies then each of these elements are ascribed attributes which are used as

markers to describe how the course follows the authentic task ideal. The authentic learning

element, Learners, is assigned the following attributes, ICT literate, problem solver, reflective

learner, collaborative learner, self sufficient learner. In addition the Tasks element is assigned

the attributes, complex activities, ill-structured, based on real-life scenarios, resulting in a

professional product. An finally the Technologies element is describe as requiring these

attributes, provides access to rich media, 24/7 connectivity to resources for learners, access to

rich resource collections, support extensive functionality and ubiquitous access and

availability.

Nicholas and Ng (2009) designed and deployed an online learning course that demonstrated

many of the characteristics of success outlined by Herrington et al. (2006). The course

developed by Nicholas and Ng (2009) demonstrated attributes of being available 24/7

provided connectivity to resources and synchronous and asynchronous communications. In

addition the learners that were involved were ICT literate, self sufficient and collaborative

learners and seemingly comfortable with complex activities. Interestingly Nicholas and Ng

(2009) found that the participants did not experience the full advantages of the online

learning course because they were hampered by already established ways of learning.

Interestingly the Nicholas and Ng (2009) study may suggest that Herrington et al. (2006)



23


claim that online learning in a tertiary environment is largely informed by a reductionist

stance to online learning may now not be the case. Nicholas and Ng (2009) found the open

structure of their course a barrier when dealing with secondary school students because theyare unfamiliar with ill-structured learning environments. Furthermore, a recent report by

Martín-Blas and Serrano-Fernández (2009) regarding their experiences in implementing an

online introductory physic course further indicates a break away from a reductionist stance to

online learning.

Martín-Blas and Serrano-Fernández (2009) found that using an online learning platform to

supplement face to face teaching encouraged students to review in greater depth concepts that

were covered during face to face lessons. Students who regularly accessed additional

multimedia representations of physics concepts, custom java applets where used, were found

to improve their performance on the theoretical exam when compared to the prior cohort of

students. The most popular items of the course were lecture notes which were loaded onto the

site after the delivery of the lecture and online quizzes used by students to check their

knowledge of the content covered; Interestingly Martín-Blas and Serrano-Fernández (2009)

found that students who were initially reticent to engage with the online learning platform

made their first tentative steps after accessing lecture notes. Furthermore, Martín-Blas and

Serrano-Fernández (2009) suggested that there was anecdotal evidence to indicate that

students found the ability to post questions, read the responses of others and also receive

rapid responses from their lecturers as a major factor in student becoming more actively

involved in their learning.

The research canvassed above all involved investigating online learning from a course

perspective with each view restricted to a either a specific subject area, undergraduate

introductory physics (Martín-Blas & Serrano-Fernández, 2009) , or a learning event, creation

of extension material for high achieving secondary students (Nicholas & Ng, 2009), or

implementation of a pedagogical approach to constructing online learning courses, use of

authentic tasks to drive online learning environment development (Herrington et al., 2006 ).

Each piece of research provides good advice on how to create effective online learning

courses, how to increase student engagement and improve student learning. In particular

Martín-Blas and Serrano-Fernández (2009) provide details of how to use user logs and data to

draw conclusions about student user experiences from the Learning Management System



24


Moodle and Herrington et al. (2006) provides a descriptive framework to guide the creation

of authentic learning experiences. However, OLC consists of multiple courses, interactive

events that may not necessarily have an obvious connection to a course being taught andpossibly participants that act in the role as both a teacher and learner. Martín-Blas and

Serrano-Fernández (2009) do detail ways to measure student involvement and a possible

correlation with improved student performance. Yet neither Martín-Blas and Serrano-

Fernández (2009) nor Herrington et al. (2006) or Nicholas and Ng (2009) provide a way to

measure the development of a sense of community within an OLC. In order to create an OLC

that enriches the learning experience of its members creates a sense of belonging and concern

for others and supports the continued intellectual growth of all its members and way of

measuring a sense of community needs to be detailed.

Dawson (2006) investigated the possible correlation between types of online forum

discussion and a sense of student community. The study investigated the possibility that the

quantity of student forum posts was an indicator of a sense of community. In order to find if a

correlation existed between sense of community and forum posts Dawson (2006) used the

Classroom Connectedness Scale developed by Rovia (2002), a self reporting online survey,

and forum posting data. Unlike Martín-Blas and Serrano-Fernández (2009) and Nicholas and

Ng (2009) the student group studied was all students studying within the Faculty of

Education at an Australian university across 21 teaching units rather than a single class or

group. Dawson (2006) classified the forum data into three interaction types, learner to

learner, learner to content and system. The learner to learner type was applied to all forum

communications between students and peers. Learner to content interactions described the

interaction between teachers and students. And finally the system interaction type described

all posts to forums that did not elicit a response. Dawson’s (2006) findings indicated that the

quantity of forum posts was not an indicator of community. However, Dawson (2006) found

a moderate relationship between the sense of community and the number of learner to learner

interactions and more importantly a significant correlation between the cumulative learner to

learner and learner to system interactions and a sense community. The possible implications

of Dawson’s (2006) research is that it provides the initial research results to develop

automated means of classifying communication data within an OLC to gauge community.



25


In view of the above it appears that it is possible to measure a sense of community within an

OLC, although the classification and forum data extraction process would need to be more

fully documented to aid in replication of the process. In addition Martín-Blas and Serrano-Fernández (2009) provide valuable strategies to extract descriptive data from Learning

Management System logs to gauge the effectiveness of student learning. Herrington et al.

(2006) provide a framework to develop authentic student centered learning and Nicholas and

Ng (2009) have provided some precautionary advice about developing online courses for

secondary students. Therefore it is possible to measure, describe and envisage an OLC that

can provide an opportunity for learners to engage with a learning environment that enables

learners and teachers to discuss current understandings, create new meanings and

construct/deconstruct new and existing knowledge.

Where do we go from here?

Online Learning Communities (OLC) are socially constructed and consist of a collection of

participants who are actively seeking to construct new knowledge; therefore the Social

Constructivist theory of Vygotsky, which is founded on the idea that individuals collectively

seek to impose meaning on the world, is an ideal theoretical perspective to frame our

understanding of OLC. Key Vygotskian concepts of the Zone of Proximal Development,

Scaffolding for Learning, Mediation of Meaning and the link between Language and Thought

can all be explored by applying them to OLC. Furthermore almost all communication within

OLC are in textual form, emails, short messages, posts in forums, chat logs, wikis, blogs and

machine readable and so provides a rich set of data for analysis. In addition to

communications being machine readable the very environment in which knowledge is being

constructed is programmable which gives an extraordinary level of control to the researcher

and designer.



26


ReferencesABS (2008). Household Use of Information Technology, Australia, 2007-08. Retrieved 8

May 2009. from http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/[email protected]/mf/8146.0.

ABS (2007). Household Use of Information Technology, Australia, 2006-07 . Retrieved

21November 2008. from

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/mediareleasesbyReleaseDate/275E744

1BED7C63ECA2573B6000FF0B0?OpenDocument.

Benson, A. (1995). Vygotsky’s Thought and Language retrieved 10 February, 2009, from

http://web.archive.org/web/20010414083709/129.7.160.115/INST5931/Vygotsky.html

Blunden, A. (2001). The Vygotsky School, spirit, money and modernity seminar retrieved 12

February, 2009, from http://home.mira.net/~andy/seminars/chat.htm

Blunden, A. (Ed.) (n.d). Soviet psychology: The Vygotsky archive retrieved 14 February,

2009, from http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/

Carol, C. (2001). Transforming classrooms: Educational psychology for teaching and

learning. Flaxton, Queensland: Post Pressed.

Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2004) . A guide to teaching p (5th

edition). London,

England: RoutledgeFalmer.

Cranston, N. (1999). Re-engineering schools and re-inventing teaching. In D. Meadmore, B.

Burnett & P. O'Brien (Eds.), Understanding education contexts and agendas for thenew millennium. Frenchs Forest, New South Wales, Australia: Prentice Hall.

Dahms, M., Geonnotti, K., Passalacqua, D., Schilk, J., Wetzel, A., & Zulkowsky, M. (2008).

The educational theory of Lev Vygotsky: An analysis. retrieved July 2, 2009 from

http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Vygotsky.html

Daniels, H., Cole, M., & Wertsch, J. (2007). Editors' Introduction. In H. Daniels, M. Cole,&

J. Wertsch (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp. 1-17). Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/[email protected]/mf/8146.0



http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/mediareleasesbyReleaseDate/275E7441BED7C63ECA2573B6000FF0B0?OpenDocument




http://home.mira.net/~andy/seminars/chat.htm



http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/













28


Hsu, J. (2007). Innovative technologies for education and learning: Education and

knowledge-oriented applications of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and more. International

Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, 3(3), 70-89.

Iriberri, A., & Leroy, G. (2009). A life-cycle perspective on online community success. ACM

Computing Surveys, 41(2), 51.

Karpov, Y., & Haywood, C. (1998). Two ways to elaborate Vygotsky's concept of mediation.

The American Psychologist, 53(1), 27-36.

Kim, A. J. (2000). Community building on the Web. Berkeley, Calif: Peachpit Press.

Kuhn, T. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions (3rd

edition), Chicago, USA:

University of Chicago Press.

Lacina, J. (2007). Computers and young children. Childhood Education, Winter, 113-116.

Lamb, A., & Johnson, L. (2007). An information skills workout: wikis and collaborative

writing, Teacher Librarian, 35(4), 57 - 59. Retrieved November 19, 2008 from

Academic Research Library database.

Lave J., & Wenger, E. (2005). Practice, person, social world. In H. Daniels (Ed.). An

introduction to Vygotsky (pp. 149- 157): Routledge.

Lawless, K. A., & Schrader, P. G. (2008). Beyond Clicks and semantics facilitating

navigation via the web's social capital. In D. H. Robinson & G. Schraw (Eds.), Recent

innovations in educational technology that facilitates student learning (pp. 221-252).

Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Learning Theories Knowledgebase (2009, July). Social Development Theory (Vygotsky) at

Learning-Theories.com. Retrieved July 2nd, 2009 from http://www.learning-

theories.com/vygotskys-social-learning-theory.html.

Lee, M., & Gaffney, M. (2008). Leading schools in a digital era. In M. Lee, & M. Gaffney

(Eds.), Leading a digital school (pp.1–13). Victoria, Australia: ACER Press.



29


Martín-Blas, T., & Serrano-Fernández, A. (2009). The role of new technologies in the

learning process: Moodle as a teaching tool in Physics. Computers & Education,

52(1), 35 - 44.

MCEETYA (2008). Learning spaces framework learning in an online world . Melbourne,

Australia: Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth

Affairs (MCEETYA).

Meiers, M. (2009). The use of ICTs in schools in the digital age: what does the research say?

QCT Research Digest , 4.

Mindel, J., & Verma, S. (2006). WIKIS for teaching and learning. Communications of the

Association for Information Systems, 18, 1 -23.

Newman, F., & Holzman, L. (1993). Lev Vygotsky revolutionary scientist . London:

Routledge.

Nicholas, H., & Ng, W. (2009). Engaging secondary school students in extended and open

learning supported by online technologies. Journal of Research on Technology in

Education, 41(3), 305 - 328.

O'Reilly, T. (2005). What Is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next

generation of software. Retrieved March 12, 2009 from

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html.

Ormrod, J. (2006). Educational psychology (5th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education.

Parsell, M. (2008). Pernicious virtual communities: Identity, polarisation and the Web 2.0.

Ethics and Information Technology, 10, 41-56.

Paslincsar, A. (2005). Socail constructivist perspectives on teaching and learning. In H.

Daniels (Ed.), An Introduction to Vygotsky (pp. 285-305): Routledge.

Pegg, J., Reading, C., & Williams, M. (2007). Partnerships in ICT learning study full report

October 2007 . from <http://www.dest.gov.au/>.

Preece, J. (2001). Sociability and usability in online communities:determining and measuring

success. Behaviour and Information Technology, 20(5), 347-356

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html





30


Rheingold, H. (1993). The virtual community: homesteading on the electronic frontier

Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley

Rheingold, H. (1998). The virtual community. Retrieved July 17, 2009 from

http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/

Rio, P. D., & Alvarez, A. (2007). Inside and outside the zone of proximal development. In H.

Daniels, M. Cole & J. Wertsch (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp.

276 - 303). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Robbins, D. (2001). Vygotsky's psychology- Philosophy a metaphor for language theory and

learning. New York: Kluwer Academic Plenum Publishers.

Rovai, A. P. (2002). Development of an instrument to measure classroom community.

Internet and Higher Education, 5(3), 197-211.

Saussuee, F. (1985). The linguistic sign. In R.E. Innis (Eds.), Semiotics: An introductory

anthology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0 new tools, new schools. Washington DC:

International Society for Technology in Education.

Thorsen, C. (2009). Tech tactics technology for teachers (3rd

Edition). Columbus, Ohio:

Allyn & Bacon/Merrill Education

Van Der Veer, R. (2007). Vygotsky in context: 1900-1935. In H. Daniels, M. Cole & J.Wertsch (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp. 21 - 49). Cambridge:


Verburg, R. A., J (2006). The assessment of communities of practice. Knowledge and

Process Management, 13(1), 13 - 25.

Wellington, J. (2005). Has ICT come of age? Recurring debates on the role of ICT in

education, 1982-2004. Research in Science & Technological Education, 23(1), 25-59.





31

Wenger, E. (1998a). Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge:


Wenger, E. (1998b). Communities of practice: Learning as a social system. Retrieved July

15, 2009 from http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/lss.shtml.

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: a

guide to managing knowledge. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Winsler, A., & Naglieri, J. (2003). Overt and covert verbal problem-solving strategies:

Developmental trends in use, awareness, and relations with task performance in

children aged 5 to 17. Child Development , 74, 659-678.

Yue, K.-B., Silva, D. D., Kim, D., Aktepe, M., Nagle, S., Boerger, C., et al. (2009). Building

real world domain-specific social network websites as a capstone project. Journal of

Information Systems Education, 20(1), 67 - 76.

http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/lss.shtml




Online Learning Communities in Secondary School Environments: Social Constructivist perspective

Documents

Transcript of Online Learning Communities in Secondary School Environments: Social Constructivist perspective