Communities of Distance Education

Abstract

Distance Education (DE) is the centre of attention for many educational organisations and recently many innovative examples of flexible educational designs that make use of the new information and communication technologies have surfaced. However, these new forms of DE have often suffered from big problems regarding, for instance, student dropouts and low levels of student performance. The thesis is based on a longitudinal action-oriented research project of Distance Educational program at a Swedish University College. The case setting is characterised by a learning-centre based DEconcept where DE uses a web based tool (DisCo) and videoconferencing as the technological infrastructure. This way of organising DE gives the students a social milieu that is a combination of co-located peers at the learning centre and a global and ITmeditated class community. Such a setting provides an interesting context suitable for studies of the social dimensions of DE practice. Consequently, the main objective that guided the research was to understand and support IT-mediated communities of distance education? This objective reflects a dual focus on both analysing and supporting DE practices. Furthermore, the longitudinal design has allowed a broad research approach that explores a rich spectrum of practices within the distance educational fabric. The main conclusions are: • The formation of a distributed Community of distance education should be understood as a gathering, where typified patterns of communication emerge when members become socially acquainted. Communitising behaviour, i.e. activities that draw attention to the existence of the community, supports community cohesiveness. • Communities change as a result of collective negotiations. Whereas most of these changes are slow and characterised by incremental innovations, it is also important to realise that the strength of the community resides in the collective attention it receives. Consequently, communities should be seen as energies that can fluctuate rapidly. • IT plays an important part in mediating and visualising social information, and adoption of IT applications are the result of collective processes of negotiating common sense of the use of said artefacts. Consequently, system malleability is important in order to allow such innovation-in-use. • IT-mediated DE practice has the potential of being more public, thereby creating a social landscape where students and teachers can develop new roles for collaborative learning. This also involves challenges for educational organisations and ITdesigners in order for DE practice to free itself from the physical boundaries of school buildings.