Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
in a subject. In advocating for the use of the term
“learning environment”, Wilson (1995) argues
that the use of the metaphor “classroom” invari-
ably starts the conversation from a teacher-led,
teacher-centred perspective, as opposed to a
learning environment that situates the learner and
their experiences in the foreground. The MOO rep-
resented starting from this learning environment
perspective. It required all involved to negotiate
their relationship with both the constructed online
environment and each other. In negotiating this
relationship by authoring their own identity and
social presence, the MOO, as an environment
conformed to both Burbule's (2000) understand-
ing of the conditions that mediate the existence of
community and Goodyear's (2002) understand-
ing of the learners' need to configure their own
“learnplaces.” In both these formulations, the
learners have licence to act and the capacity to
author their own spaces. The construction of the
MOO represented this fluidity and the relationship
between elements of the online environment and
people's behaviour. Students knew how to
be
, and
how to use of the environment to develop SLSN's
because the environment felt familiar. They could
create things and shape their own environment,
while others were present in the MOO in ways
that facilitated greater engagement. For example
students created objects to carry around, authored
their own identity via a text-based descriptor of
themselves, decorated their own dorm rooms and
developed objects for a virtual gallery.
nium is a mismatch between what we know and
what we do. (Brown and Johnson-Shull 2000)
Reflecting on Brown and Johnson-Shull's la-
ment on the failure of academic research to inform
practice, it is a little daunting to speculate on the
place of a piece of research such as this - one that
uses the experiences of students to explore the three
distinct fields of “online learning”, “community”
and “learning environment design” - and to argue
for its capacity to inform a new approach to the
development of online learning environments.
And yet that is precisely the implications of this
research. It provides a grounded understanding
of the significance of community in the form of
Social Learning Support Networks for student
learning, and demonstrates that the design of the
online learning environment plays a significant
role in providing students with an opportunity
to build connections and relationships with each
other.
Is it right to suggest that all future online learn-
ing environments should look something like the
MOO used in the third case? The answer to this
is simply, no. The development of online learning
environments and the use of the Internet in higher
education is a rapidly evolving field - as is the
technical capability of students - with teaching
staff in most fields often lagging somewhat behind,
but improving nevertheless. Certainly, we have
some examples of graphics-based virtual online
educational spaces (such as tappedin.org for K-12
teacher's professional development and projects
in SecondLife - a virtual world which will be
discussed in detail later). It is fair to suggest these
virtual worlds have not really influenced CMS
design to date. It is reasonable to argue that this
is because the resource issues these environments
create, both in terms of the need for broadband
Internet access for students, and the technical
capacities of teaching staff required to build learn-
ing environments in them, are still too great. The
MOO was a text-based environment and was very
accessible using a dial-up connection and was
easy to develop for staff. Further research will be
implicationS from tHiS
project for future reSearcH
anD tHe Development of
elearning environmentS
The plague of academic research historically has
been its failure to inform practice (Robinson,
1998). Whether research in teaching and learn-
ing has been misunderstood, refuted, or simply
ignored, the result at the dawn of the new millen-
Search WWH ::
Custom Search