CPsquare

This paper is an example of one of the activities that seems to always be going on behind the scenes at CPsquare — writing up and sharing our experience, in this case at the Webist Conference.

Participation in international virtual learning communities; A social learning perspective by Beverly Trayner, John D. Smith, and Marco Bettoni

Keywords: international virtual learning communities, international online communities, identity of participation, communities of practice, social learning perspective, e-learning, technology wishes

Abstract: A promise of new web-based technologies is that they provide learning opportunities for people distributed across the globe but who can participate across time and space in the same virtual learning community. How do they do it? In this paper we report on some of the experiences of a virtual learning community which has members from twenty-five countries across different time-zones and who communicate in English. Through a communities of practice perspective we focus on the social nature of learning and describe some of the challenges and design issues raised in this community as it explores and develops practices for learning in an international online environment. While our focus is on social practices, and on developing an identity of participation in relation to those practices, we also make some wishes for web-based technologies that would better support these practices in an international virtual learning community.