THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL SOFTWARE IN DEVELOPING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE TO ENHANCE ADULT LEARNING

Abstract

There is a growing recognition of the importance in using online communities of practice (CoPs) in the field of adult learning and education. How do adults learn is a key question to answer in the context of long life learning. But how can learning be enhanced in the context of a community of practice? This is the question I aimed to answer through the ethnographic research I have been conducted on adult learners, professionals in architecture field. The general hypothesis I have formulated is that social software offers facilities that support the process of learning within communities of practice. The focus of the paper is to follow two main concepts: communities of practice and social software (especially virtual worlds as Second Life). My work proposes a theoretical framework based on social learning theory (E. Wenger) and distributed cognition approach (Hutchins) to develop a learning architecture that was implemented in the context of a community of practice in Second Life virtual world. Thus, the research objective is to explain how and to what extend social software can enhance learning in a community of practice, by analyzing the effects of virtual worlds on the engagement, imagination and alignment. The context of the study can be characterized by a small online community of practice, where core members already know each other and work together in the real life. The research I propose can be defined by two parts: secondary data and literature analysis and empirical study. Based on Wenger?s (2002) understanding of the communities of practice, I designed the architecture of learning based on engagement, imagination and alignment, the three main process that support the objectives of a community of practice, according to Wenger (2002): learning, meaning making, participation, and engaging. To conduct empirical research virtual worlds (Second Life) were selected to support the community of practice. Secondly, a wiki and a blog were used to support and facilitate communication. The secondary data and literature analysis argues that social software and CoPs share several important characteristics, which makes it interesting to deeply approach this relation. Besides this theoretical approach of the research, I have been conducted an empirical study, based on a qualitative research strategy (bulletin boards focus groups, in-depth interviews, netnographies (Kozinets, 2010), focus groups and case study research methods were used to conduct the research). This study aimed to refine the secondary analysis mentioned earlier, which explains the facilities created by Second Life to support the engagement, imagination, and alignment. Furthermore, these insights were summarized in a conceptual framework, which was the main topic in a focus group interview with a group of experts on the subject (adult learning, communities of practice, educational sciences, and social software). The participants of the focus group validated the conceptual framework, but they also underlined various interesting implications of using Second Life in adult learning. Important results were revealed after conducting this research. In the first way, the research proves that virtual worlds can be applied within small communities of practice. Secondly, this study shows that the usage of social software does offer facilities that support the engagement, imagination, and alignment. Thirdly, this study shows that every single social software example offers its unique contribution to the implementation of the architecture of learning, which results in a optimal combination of three services.