Learning Communities

How have learning communities evolved and how may they look in the future?

Kalantzis & Cope (2006) divide learning communities into three different eras: ‘Bureaucratic: The modern past”, “Self-managing: More recent times” and “Collaborative: New Learning”. Below, I have created diagrams based on the ideas presented under the three above-mentioned periods.


Bureaucratic



In the Bureaucratic era, curriculum was defined by the Education Department, dictated to Principals and passed down the line until it reached teachers who would teach using text books which had been created to cater for the curriculum as their main resource. Parents would be informed of assessment results but had little input into their child’s formal education.


Self-managing



Above we see that in recent times, teachers have been given more freedom to design the curriculum. Whilst they are still required to operate within the confines of standards created by the Education Department and School Management, they have had much more flexibility in creating curriculum by drawing from professional experience, their own education and syllabus in text books of their choosing.
With the curriculum that they have designed, they have been teaching students, who in turn have completed assessment to ensure that the topic has been absorbed. Again, the results of assessment have been delivered to parents and to the Education Department.
In these learning communities, parents have been encouraged to take a more active role in their child’s education by coming in to help with tasks such as reading, canteen duty and maintenance.
While the hierarchy still exists in the diagram that I have created, we are starting to see it spread in a more horizontal direction.



Collaborative



Learning communities of the future may look completely different again.
Instead of the learner being at the end of the chain, they are in the centre. Students will no longer been seen only as needing to learn, but as people who can be learned from. Teachers will be seen more as guides than dictators and will be engaged in lifelong learning by learning from all members of the learning community including students.
Some traditional elements will still exist such as the influence of standards set out by the Government and Principal, but the learner is exposed to much more through interaction with community members that have previously not appeared.

What role will information and communication technology have to play in future learning communities?

ICT will play a pivotal role within future learning communities and we are already starting to see these changes take place. Through blogs, wikis, social networking sites (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) students of the future will be able to collaborate and share knowledge in new and innovative ways.

Online gaming communities are fantastic examples of how learning can be concurrently fun and educational experiences.

Shaffer, Squire, Halverson and Gee (2005) state that “In schools students largely work alone, with school-sanctioned materials; avid gamers seek out news sites, read and write FAQs, participate in discussion forums, and become critical consumers of information.” (p. 106).

Below I have posted a video in which James Gee talks about the role video games in learning communities:



Online learning communities already exist and are only going to grow. The Australian Education system needs to embrace the notion that collaborative online learning communities can be a very useful tool to keep learning current, make it appealing to youth and capitalise on the huge knowledge sharing potential that they offer.