Pre-Service Teachers' Reflections in a Virtual Learning Community: A Praxeological Study

This paper presents a praxeological study that analyzes pre-service teachers' reflections about their beliefs in teaching, English language teaching theories, and experiences as teachers. These reflections were shared in a VLC (Virtual Learning Community) to promote pre-service teachers’ reflection in three moments: in, on, and for action. The participants were 25 pre-service teachers from a bachelor's program in English as a foreign language teaching at a private university in Bogotá, Colombia. The data collected came from the participants’ responses, lesson plans, video recordings of their classes shared in the vlc, and a focus group. The results indicated that by reflecting on different moments of the teaching practice and sharing experiences with other classmates, pre-service teachers became more conscious about language teaching theories, their implementation, their actions, and decisions in the classroom. However, there is a need to promote deeper levels of reflection, in which pre-service teachers interpret and understand what happens in their practice better, from a critical point of view and in light of the theory and the reality of the school.

Blogging In A Virtual Learning Community: How Does It Support Continuous Professional Learning For Ontario Registered Early Childhood Educators?

This research study examined the use of blogging as a medium for professional learning for registered early childhood educators (RECEs) in Ontario. Although educators are more frequently turning to blogs, social media, and virtual learning communities for their professional learning, there is a limited amount of previous research which has examined the use and efficacy of these mediums for that purpose. Using grounded theory, and guided by a social constructivist framework, I gathered data from blog posts and comments written by a small group of RECEs practicing in Ontario, and conducted interviews at two intervals to gather their perceptions of the blogging experience. While further study is needed to address potential barriers which may hinder RECEs from using blogging, I found that there were benefits in the use of blogging as a medium for reflection, building a professional community, and professional learning.

Blogging In A Virtual Learning Community: How Does It Support Continuous Professional Learning For Ontario Registered Early Childhood Educators?

This research study examined the use of blogging as a medium for professional learning for registered early childhood educators (RECEs) in Ontario. Although educators are more frequently turning to blogs, social media, and virtual learning communities for their professional learning, there is a limited amount of previous research which has examined the use and efficacy of these mediums for that purpose. Using grounded theory, and guided by a social constructivist framework, I gathered data from blog posts and comments written by a small group of RECEs practicing in Ontario, and conducted interviews at two intervals to gather their perceptions of the blogging experience. While further study is needed to address potential barriers which may hinder RECEs from using blogging, I found that there were benefits in the use of blogging as a medium for reflection, building a professional community, and professional learning.

Citizenship Training through sMOOCs: A Participative and Intercreative Learning

sMOOCs (social massive open online courses) have revealed themselves as a remarkable opportunity to foster the culture of participation and open knowledge and sustainability. Due to their communicative potential, they make it possible for participants to interact, to create ubiquitous learning, and to build knowledge in a collective way. This educational and communicative line has set the basis for the European ECO (e-learning, communication, open data) Project, i.e., the purpose of our study, which, beyond training teachers, is decidedly betting on open life-long education. The results presented in the study have been elicited by following a quantitative methodology, through the analysis of a “sMOOC Step by Step” community, intended to become an educational gate to students’ empowerment, shared knowledge, and participation in the course. Results show that collaborative work practices organized by teachers in that virtual learning community encourage educational changes. Both the degree of satisfaction with the learning achieved and the way students perceive its direct applicability to real-life professional contexts prove the effectiveness of this training model. Our research has expanded, aiming to discover sMOOCs opportunities for teacher training and assessing the motivation shown by the virtual learning community towards such an educational reality.

Users' Intention to Share Knowledge Using Wiki in Virtual Learning Community

Many educational organizations are using Wikis to enhance virtual learning to encourage knowledge sharing inside between students and instructors. Wiki is an ideal tool for the online knowledge sharing at educational organizations which help to achieve more collaborative work environment between students and instructors. However, educational organizations sometimes fail of building successful virtual community and users abound Wikis for several reasons. This research explored the use of Wikis to share knowledge in virtual learning community. A proposed conceptual framework was developed examining the UTAUT model in new context by using it to test the behavior intention to share knowledge through the Wiki technology in virtual community. A survey to postgraduate students shows that social influence, performance, and effort expectancy have impact on students' attitude to share knowledge through Wikis.