Online Communities and Interactions

Abstract

This chapter considers the ways in which social and participatory media can be used in education. In particular, it looks at the nature of online interactions and communities. It argues that new forms of more distributed, loose communities are emerging, which require new ways of describing and evaluating them. This chapter describes some of the most common e-learning pedagogies and looks at examples of how technologies can be used to instantiate these. This chapter introduces a community indicator framework (CIF) that we have developed to design and evaluate online spaces and to understand emergent user behaviour in them. This chapter explores the range of user interactions that are now evident in such online spaces, ranging from individual interactions with resources to engagement with distributed networks and online communities. It argues that new approaches, such as the open learning design methodology introduced in this book, are needed if these online environments are going to be effective in supporting more participatory approaches to learning.