How to develop and maintain an on-line community of co-learners: A social media classroom

Buzzo, Daniel; Phelps, Philip

Abstract

The modular nature of courses and the fragmenting pressures of Higher Education schedules can make it difficult to create and/or maintain any semblance of a community of practice (i.e. one in which the discussion of learning and around learning is open and apparent). We ask if it is possible to engender an on-line community of practice and re-capture the all round discussion that is often lost in a ”siloed” modular teaching approach.
To investigate our research question we have developed a mechanism to help cohorts access interactions between staff and students. These communications can be fragmented and disconnected across various channels, both physical, verbal and digital. We believe our approach is effective in assisting in creating cohort identity and raising the discussion around a community of practice. Our system is easily adaptable to practitioners and educators in many subject areas, in a way that does not require any specialist technical understanding.

Citation

Buzzo, D., & Phelps, P. (2015, June). How to develop and maintain an on-line community of co-learners: A social media classroom. Paper presented at 14th International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: 14th International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training
• Start Date: Jun 11, 2015
• End Date: Jun 13, 2015
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2015
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 1-4
• Keywords: community of practice, social media, educational technology, pedagogy
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ITHET.2015.7218035
• Related Public URLs: https://sites.google.com/site/ieetel2015/
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : 14th International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training