Creating, Supporting, Managing, and Sustaining Virtual Learning Communities

CALL FOR SPECIAL ISSUE on “Creating, Supporting, Managing, and Sustaining Virtual Learning Communities” for the Knowledge Management & E-Learning: An International Journal (KM&EL) http://kmel-journal.org/ojs/index.php/online-publication

 

Guest Editor

Xun Ge, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Instructional Psychology and Technology

Department of Educational Psychology

The University of Oklahoma

U. S. A.

 

E-mail: xge@ou.edu

 

We are living in an information-rich digital age full of wondrous power, capabilities, and possibilities of emerging technologies. Web 2.0 technologies, characterized by participatory information sharing and collaboration and users generating content and creating knowledge in virtual communities, have opened our eyes to a new open world (Bonk, 2009). Examples of web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, virtual worlds, and digital object repositories. These emerging technologies have provided us numerous possibilities for learning and instruction and for creating engaging learning environments, optimal learning opportunities, and alternative and innovative instructional experiences for K-12 education, higher education, corporate, government, and military training. The world has entered into what Bonk (2009) describes as “We-All-Learn” trends, which encourage open participation and compel educators to reflect on learning and instruction from a new perspective. Learners are no longer passive information recipients, whose role is to memorize or consume information, but rather active participants, whose role is to direct their own learning, construct and create knowledge, and contribute to a virtual community. In this new paradigm, teachers are guides, coaches, and mentors to facilitate learning.

 

However, the potentials of the emerging web 2.0 technologies have not been fully recognized and tapped. Often we find online instruction simply duplication of face-to-face lectures, in which situation technology is simply an appendage to education instead of playing a more central and transforming role. Many instructors have not changed their mindset to accommodate the participatory culture and the new paradigm of learning and instruction; and little has been done beyond posting syllabi, assignments, and grading to a learning management system or a web site that is supposed to be used for collaborative learning. It is argued that new technologies not only make us more productive, but also help us become more reflective and creative.  Most importantly, technologies have afforded us with tools to accomplish goals we would have not been able to without them. As early as in the 80s, Pea (1985) argued that technology should be used not only to amplify our thinking but also to reorganize our mental functioning. Therefore, we are prompted to fully take advantage of web 2.0 affordances to develop innovative learning environments and build virtual learning communities that will motivate and engage learners meaningfully and interactively, focusing on developing the 21st century skills that emphasize innovation, creativity, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, decision making, and problem solving. 

 

Yet, using emerging technologies to build a virtual learning community (VLC) is a multifaceted innovation. It not only involves the use of new technologies, but also new methods of learning and new ways of thinking about learning and instruction. It presents multiple levels of challenges to both learners and instructors. Subsequently, there are numerous issues awaiting to be investigated, examined, studied, and addressed, including learners’ perceptions, motivation and identity when participating in a VLC, strategies and methods of designing, building, managing, supporting, and evaluating a VLC in developing students’ critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity, and teachers’ beliefs about participatory culture of a virtual learning environment.

 

This special issue of the KM&EL international journal is dedicated to the building of VLCs using emerging technologies. In this special issue, a VLC is defined as both informal, such as one that supports ongoing professional development, and formal, such as one as found in a formal course setting that lasts a semester. In this call, we invite manuscripts that report empirical studies (both quantitative and qualitative methods) of investigating issues and challenges related to the building of a VLC, the use or design of tools to scaffold the growth of a VLC, and methods and efforts to create, build, manage, sustain and evaluate a VLC. In addition, this special issue welcomes manuscripts discussing conceptual frameworks or theoretical constructs related to a VLC.  Recommended topics of interest include, but not limited to:

 

Impact of a Virtual Learning Community

             Learners/members’ perceptions and their impact on their participation in a VLC

             Learners/members’ motivation in a VLC

             Learners’ identity development in a VLC

             Teacher or a facilitator’s role in a VLC

             Role of a VLC on critical thinking and problem solving skill development

             Impact of peer interactions on metacognition and self-regulation in a VLC

             VLC and reflective learners

 

Designing, Scaffolding, and Evaluating a Virtual Learning Community

             Tools and strategies to build, support, manage, and sustain a VLC

             Tools and strategies to promote identity development in a VLC

             Tools and strategies to facilitate peer interactions, collaboration and other VLC activities

             Tools and strategies to facilitate reflection and self-regulation in a VLC

             Tools and strategies to support complex problem solving in a VLC

             Tools and methods to evaluate the effectiveness of a VLC

 

Conceptual Frameworks or Theoretical Constructs about a Virtual Learning Community

             Community of learners and practice

             Community of inquiry

             Types of communities and their characteristics (e.g., task-based, knowledge-based, and practice-based, etc.)

             Various constructs and factors influencing the success of a VLC

 

References

Bonk, C. J. (2009). The world is open: How Web technology is revolutionizing education. Jossey-Base.

Pea, R. D.  (1985). Beyond amplification: Using the computer to reorganize mental functioning. Educational Psychologist, 20(4), 167-182.

 

Important Submission Dates

Submission due: 20th August, 2011

Notification of decision: 20th October, 2011

Finalization: 20th November 2011

Publication schedule: December 2011

 

Submission Instructions

Manuscripts should be sent by email to the Guest Editor, Dr. Xun Ge (xge@ou.edu).

Papers must not have been published, accepted for publication, or presently be under consideration for publication elsewhere. A standard double-blind review process will be used for selecting papers to be published in this special issue. Authors should follow the instructions outlined in the KM&EL Website (see URL http://www.kmel-journal.org/ojs/index.php/online-publication/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions)

For more information about the KM&EL, please visit the web site: http://www.kmel-journal.org/ojs/index.php/online-publication

 

 

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