According to Bielaczyc and Collins (1999): “The defining quality of a learning community is that there is a culture of learning in which everyone is involved in a collective effort of understanding. There are four characteristics that such a culture must have: (1) diversity of expertise among its members who are valued for their contributions and given support to develop, (2) a shared objective of continually advancing the collective knowledge and skills, (3) an emphasis on learning how to learn, and (4) mechanisms for sharing what is learned.” In what ways do the networked communities you examined represent this characterization of learning communities? What implications does this have for your practice and the design of learning activities?
I have chosen the most recent article among in-depth readings of Virtual Field Trips(VFTs) ‘Using Virtual Field Trips to Connect Students with University Scientists: Core Elements and Evaluation of zipTrips™’ from Adedokun at el. (2012). ZipTrips was designed to make university science researchers accessible to middle school students and their teachers, particularly those in resource-limited rural areas, by providing them with opportunities to see and interact with scientists and their exciting work. The paper identifies and describes some of the core characteristics and elements of high-quality authentic VFTs that foster student-scientist interactions
The researchers believe this virtual university field trip program has embedded an interactive learning environment to a certain extend:
1) it provides a clear educational objective in an authentic environment with links to curriculum and academic standards;
2) it promotes active engagement and meaningful interactions at different levels’ including student and teacher interactions with the learning materials (i.e., artifacts and field trip resources), student interactions with peers, teachers, other professional experts as well as the opportunity to ask, answer and discuss questions related to the experience’;
3) it ‘recognizes and builds upon students’ personal experiences and respects them as legitimate sources of knowledge’ through constructive learning;
4) it deploys theory-based pedagogical approaches including both inquiry learning and problem-based learning;
5) it also encourages additional teacher support to enhance student learning.
zipTrips has met all the criteria that Bielaczyc and Collins (1999) suggested and highlighted on authenticity. Real-time interactions with real scientists connect students with the real world beyond their classroom and make science relevant to learners. The successful model of this VFT application has reminded me of the rich educational affordance of multi-media communications, including video conferences, emails, online discussion forums, and web streaming.
Reference:
Adedokun, O. A., Hetzel, K., Parker, L. C., Loizzo, J., Burgess, W. D., & Paul Robinson, J. (2012). Using Virtual Field Trips to Connect Students with University Scientists: Core Elements and Evaluation of zipTrips™. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 21(5), 1-12. DOI 10.1007/s10956-011-9350-z