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The research group of
Online Learning Communities was founded at the IT University of
Göteborg, Sweden in January 2002. The objects for the group is to
establish research about the origin and development of Online Learning
Communities (OLC) and sustainable learning processes.
You can download our publications
from our homepage.
 OLC
is a group of people sharing a common interest and learning together
in a collaborative mode by using information and communication technology
(ICT). The extension of the Internet and the increasing use of email,
discussionboards connected to databases and the web, have improved
Internetbased communities, where people using virtual environments
in a flexible mode, independently of time and place. Online Learning
Communities can be a complementary to collaboration between people
in physical environments. The basic foundation of the concept OLC
is the mediation of knowledge between the learners, rather than
the transmission of information from the teacher to the learners.
The Online Learning Communities is defined as a learning atmosphere,
a context providing a supportive system from which sustainable learning
processes are gained through dialog and collaborative construction
of knowledge by acquiring, generating, analysing and structuring
information. The participants create the content themselves with
the support of the community rather than being provided with ready-made
study materials. The OLC is therefore more of a context, than content
provider. A moderator could facilitate the learning process within
the OLC and guide the learners by using pedagogical methods.
The aim of the project is to establish research about Online Learning
Communities origin, developments and the sustainability. The intension
of the work by the OLC-group is to describe and explain, what makes
people learn in these communities, when they are interacting with
support from Internet technology and new mobile artefacts. The OLC-group
will also describe the field within the occurrences of OLC by selecting
case studies and documents how learning and further education constitutes
in these communities. The research of how learning and competence
development takes place, in already existing ICT-based learning
communities, and the connection to the question concerning the conditions
for life-long learning, is scientifically and educationally interesting
and can bring a meaningful contribution to the knowledge of how
life-long learning can be organised in the future.
Projects:
One project, presented in english, is Learning in and through Online
Learning Communities. The life-long learning process is today the
focus of debate both nationally and internationally. The project
that is described hear is focused on analyzing the potential of
how a new environment for learning and knowledge development, i.e.
Online Learning Communities (OLC), will function in this connection.
This is done within the frame-work for the various professional
communities, for example teachers, doctors, technicians and others
with qualified positions whose work content changes depending on
technical development. Today, this is organized, to a great extent,
by means of OLC were there is a continual exchange of experience
and where learning occurs. We mean that the study of how learning
and competence development takes place, in these already existing
ICT-based learning communities, and the connection to the question
concerning the conditions for life-long learning, is scientifically
and educationally interesting and can give a meaningful contribution
to the knowledge of how life-long learning can be organized in the
future: The aim of the project is to study life-long learning for
professionals and to do this by means of Online Learning Communities
(OLC).
1. Chart the occurrences of OLC within the various professions/trades.
2. By means of a selected case study document how learning and further
education takes place in these communities.
3. Analyze the importance of OLC in the present discussion of continual
education and life-long learning.
4. Discuss the importance of research results in progressive empirical
perspective for ICT and learning.
The research group of OLC are also working with creating and implementing
OLC in different areas. We are also planing to accomplish research
project in specific OLC-areas such as "OLC-connected education",
the use of "Learning objects in communties", and "Community Management"
such as the topic "Moderating and Conflict handling in OLC".
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