A User Driven Learning Environment in Botany

2011 ◽  
pp. 255-275
Author(s):  
J. M. Garg ◽  
Dinesh Valke ◽  
Max Overton
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Information Resources ◽  
Online Learning Community ◽  
Conversational Learning ◽  
Group Members

This chapter introduces the reader to a sample ‘User driven learning environment’ created in an online community with a special interest centred on trees and plants. It traces the development of an online learning community through the lived experiences and thoughts of its founding members and also includes conversational learning experiences of other users to illustrate the process of ‘user driven learning’ in online communities. It illustrates innovative sense making methodologies utilized by group members to create a more meaningful ‘User driven learning environment’ while simultaneously contributing in a positive way to create information resources at no cost along with creating awareness & scientific temper among members.

Online learning community software to support success in project teams

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Patrick Thoms
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Project Teams ◽  
Online Learning Community ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Networking Technologies ◽  
Community Software

<p>In this research we explore aspects of social interaction and community as they relate to success in project-based courses. Using specialized online community software consisting of social networking technologies and project-based wikis, project teams are able to collaborate and interact as they progress towards project milestones. Our study underscores the importance of sustained engagement as a means for fostering high levels of community and how these levels relate to project motivation and, ultimately, project success. Guided by a theoretical model that explains how individuals collaborate within online communities, we measure member perceptions of the software before and after our intervention. Survey results found that online learning community (OLC) software can successfully support learning and social interaction. These results are supported by a social network analysis (SNA), which shows high levels of individual engagement across the project lifecycle.</p><p> </p><p> Keywords: social networking, online learning community, wiki, project management, capstone project.</p>

Backstage with the Knowledge Boys and Girls: Goffman and Distributed Agency in an Organic Online Community

2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Drew A.R. Ross
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Message Board ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Online Learning Community ◽  
The World ◽  
Electronic Social Space ◽  
Front Region

An institutionally independent organic online learning community (OOLC) founded and populated by London cabbies-in-training, more commonly known to the world and to themselves as `Knowledge Boys and Girls', is described here. Qualitative discourse analysis of message board transcripts and interviews with members was undertaken in an effort to elucidate benefits that accrue to OOLC members. Goffman's theory of region behaviour is enlisted to explain why frank, collegial and sometimes confessional interactions with peers might take place in such an online venue. This article suggests that through such candid interactions among peers, learners create a back-region that allows participants to compare themselves with one another, cultivate friendships and practise for high-stakes assessments. OOLC members take advantage of the pseudonymity provided by their electronic social space to engage in behaviours that, if they occurred in a front-region, might invite damage to a learner's reputation as a pre-service cabbie. The online community BR becomes a sanctuary of sorts for taking social and academic risks, one where potential adverse consequences are few and benefits are legion.

scholarly journals DESIGNING AN ONLINE LEARNING COMMUNITY AMONG TEACHER EDUCATORS

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shironica Karunanayaka
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Online Course ◽  
Educational Technologist ◽  
Online Learning Environment ◽  
Online Learning Community ◽  
The Impact

Online course delivery is rapidly growing among educational institutions all over the world, especially in Open and Distance Learning institutions. The frequent criticisms on distance education for having only limited interactions between teachers and students as opposed to traditional face to face teaching can be significantly minimized with the increased use of online methods, due to its unique instructional capabilities. Online learning provides ample opportunities for students learning at a distance to constantly interact with their teachers as well as peers, sharing experiences and working collaboratively. The creation of a sense of social presence is essential to establish a collaborative online learning environment, as it is a most important factor that helps people actively collaborate, thus increasing a sense of belonging to the learning community. The Faculty of Education of the Open University of Sri Lanka offered the online course, "Teacher Educator as an Educational Technologist" in December 2007, using the learning management system Moodle. The course was designed using a collaborative learning model, allowing adequate opportunities for the distant learners to actively engage in their learning process, engaging in a number of learning and assessment tasks with the support of learning resources and instructor guidance, while collaborating and sharing experiences among each other, mainly through discussion forums. Using the case study approach, an investigation was carried out to find out the specific strategies and techniques adopted by designers, instructors and students in enhancing community building among the participants in the online learning environment. It further explored the impact of community building on the distant learners, who were also novices to online learning. This paper discusses the development process in the building of an online learning community and emphasizes on the roles of designers, teachers, and learners.

Using a synchronous online learning environment to promote and enhance transactional engagement beyond the classroom

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 264-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Wdowik
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Student Perspective ◽  
Online Learning Community ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Synchronous Online Learning ◽  
Synchronous Online

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to create a synchronous online learning community through the use of Blackboard Collaborate! to promote and enhance transactional engagement outside the classroom. Design/methodology/approach – This paper employs a quantitative and qualitative approach where data were sourced from a third year finance unit across one semester using a survey instrument. SPSS v20 was used to perform basic descriptive analysis. Findings – The study revealed that by providing an online learning community through the use of Blackboard Collaborate! significantly enhances transactional engagement beyond the classroom. In particular the use of Blackboard Collaborate! allowed the teacher to be more accessible, supportive, expect and support high standards and provide challenging activities that generated rich and meaningful interactions and promoted higher order thinking skills. Research limitations/implications – The positive results emanating from this study may encourage other educators and their institutions to adopt a synchronous online learning community to enhance student's engagement levels and increase the quality of student learning and their university experience. This study was conducted at only one university so it may not be feasible to form generalisations resulting from the findings. Originality/value – This study adds new insights towards the scarce amount of literature on engagement in a blended learning environment. In particular the study adds a student perspective to the student engagement literature and to what constitutes quality in higher education and/or improved student experience.

scholarly journals The Attitudes of Saudi Intermediate Students towards English Speaking Tasks in Flipped Learning via an Online Learning Community

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. p37
Author(s):  
Amjad S. Alharbi ◽  
Hind A. Alfadda
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Public School ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Flipped Learning ◽  
Online Learning Community ◽  
Intermediate Students ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Speaking Skill ◽  
Students Attitudes

This paper investigates Saudi intermediate students’ attitudes towards using flipped learning via an online learning community to enhance their speaking skill at a Saudi female’s public-school number 186. The writer observed and analysed the effect of using flipped learning in an online community on the development and engagement of students in speaking tasks. The study uses a quantitative quasi-experimental method to describe and analyse the student’s attitudes and development of the speaking skill among Arabic-speaking students in the public-school number 186 in Saudi Arabia during the academic year 2019-2020. The researcher applied a questionnaire and an observation checklist as the main instrument to achieve the study goal. The findings of the study were not statistically significant regarding the effect of flipped learning via an Online Learning Community (OLC) on the development of students’ speaking skill. However, there was a slight difference in the mean scores in favor to the post-test of the experimental group. The students’ attitudes were positive towards the flipped learning via OLC for speaking tasks.

Evaluation

2011 ◽  
pp. 186-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances Bell ◽  
Elena Zaitseva ◽  
Danuta Zakrzewska
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Technology Acceptance ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Online Learning Community ◽  
Online Learning Communities

Our emphasis in this chapter is on the sustainability of online educational communities, particularly the role that evaluation has to play in promoting sustainability. From the literature on online communities and evaluation of technology, we select and extend models of online community and technology acceptance that inform and enable the design and evaluation of sustainable online educational communities. Sustainability is a key issue that highlights the sociotechnical nature of these communities. Collaboration Across Borders is an online learning community that has received EU Socrates-Minerva funding to establish international collaboration between tutors and students and investigate sustainability of online learning communities. We present a case study of the development of the CAB community and its associated portal http://moodle.cabweb.net as a chronology of significant events. We then chart the evaluation process, using examples of tools and data to highlight the role of evaluation in the development of CABWEB and the sustainability of the CAB Community. Finally, we offer practical advice to those who wish to develop online learning communities, either small-scale collaborations between two groups of students or international networks of students and tutors.

Information Technology for Construction of Online Teachers Learning Community

2014 ◽  
Vol 1023 ◽  
pp. 217-220
Author(s):  
Kun Wang ◽  
Yi Yang
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Information Technology ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Online Learning Community ◽  
College English ◽  
Online Teachers ◽  
Network Platform

Professional development of college English teachers is vital to current education reform in China. The paper aims to explore the development from the perspective of online learning community. To begin with, statistics of research journals about learning community of recent three years was made. The dynamic development of learning community was also analyzed briefly. Then, it designed the structure of online teachers learning community. Finally, it comes to the conclusion that the construction of online learning community can be achieved from four aspects. The system network platform plays an important role in the process of online learning community. Creating learning environment, enriching learning resources and developing proper norms all contribute to the implementation of online teachers learning community.

Influence of psychological safety and social presence on knowledge sharing behavior in higher education online learning environment

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Putra Endi Catyanadika ◽  
Jay Rajasekera
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
Knowledge Sharing ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Social Presence ◽  
Online Learning Environment ◽  
Online Learning Community ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The absence of physical interactions in online learning environment brings psychological influences on learning participants in interacting and sharing knowledge with others, such as ignorance of other member’s presence and insecurity to share something in online environment. The purpose of this research was to examine the knowledge sharing behavior (KSB) by online learning community members in terms of their psychological safety (PS) and social presence (SP) perceptions. In addition, this research also identified the influence of PS to promote SP and the mediation impact of SP in the relationships between PS and KSB. Design/methodology/approach The data were gathered through self-administered questionnaire distributed to 133 online class members at a university in Indonesia where online learning has created a new learning experience. To represent key behavioral attributes, 12 items were used to represent PS, SP and KSB. The relationships among the variables were analyzed using the structural equation modelling method. Findings The result showed that PS positively influenced SP and KSB. SP also brought a positive impact on promoting KSB and fully mediated the relationship between PS and KSB. Research limitations/implications The result may not have fully captured the reflection of the influencing factors of KSB, as this research focused only on two psychological factors, namely, PS and SP. The research may be further enriched by including additional factors and expanding the data collection to include more online learning institutions. Practical implications The results implied the importance of PS and SP perception to promoting KSB in online learning environments. The results highlighted an important message to universities and schools to be more concerned on students’ feeling safe personally and students’ awareness of others’ presence to maximize knowledge sharing activities in online class environment. Originality/value This paper revealed the importance of PS and SP to promote KSB in the higher education online learning community. To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, this is the first study to link PS and SP to KSB and identify the importance of the mediation effect of SP on the relationship between PS and KSB specifically in higher education online learning environment.

scholarly journals Developing Coding Structures For Becoming Affect-Savy in the Fully Online Community Model

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ufuk Yagci ◽  
ROLAND VANOOSTVEEN
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Social Presence ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Body Language ◽  
Coding System ◽  
Online Learning Community ◽  
The Social

This study aims to provide support for the efficacy of the Fully Online Learning Community (FOLC) Model by examining communication between participants within a series of recorded online focus groups and by investigating the behaviours that are undertaken by participants. A coding system based on body language expressions is proposed as an outcome of this study and the affective domain of the participants is analyzed through facial expressions, body language and content (words) employed. Findings suggest that affects (emotions) have a preeminent role in the social presence in FOLC environments. Positive emotions are easier to detect as individuals exhibit them without masking, with some possible exceptions arising from personal dispositions and cultural inferences. Negative emotions can also be detected through a combination of facial expressions and body language coding. However, findings were not consistent for determining sadness and surprise states and further studies will have to explore ways to differentiate these affects from others. The instigations set forward by the participants and affective responses to the behaviours of instigators provided support for the empirical study about the efficacy of facilitation and interactions within fully online learning environments.

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