KM&EL 2011 - Special Issue on Creating, Supporting, Managing, and Sustaining Virtual Learning Communities

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Category KM&EL 2011

Deadline: August 20, 2011 | Date: December 31, 2011

Venue/Country: Call for Papers, U.S.A

Updated: 2011-05-01 13:50:47 (GMT+9)

Call For Papers - CFP

Special Issue on

Creating, Supporting, Managing, and Sustaining Virtual Learning Communities

Guest Editor

Xun Ge, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Instructional Psychology and Technology

Department of Educational Psychology

The University of Oklahoma

U. S. A.

Email: xgeou.edu

We are living in an information-rich digital age full of wondrous

power, capabilities, and possibilities of emerging technologies. Web

2.0 technologies, characterized by participatory information sharing

and collaboration and users generating content and creating knowledge

in virtual communities, have opened our eyes to a new open world

(Bonk, 2009). Examples of web 2.0 include social networking sites,

blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, virtual worlds, and digital object

repositories. These emerging technologies have provided us numerous

possibilities for learning and instruction and for creating engaging

and optimal learning opportunities and alternative and innovative

instructional experiences for K-12 education, higher education,

corporate, government, and military training. The world has entered

into what Bonk (2009) describes as “We-All-Learn” trends, which

encourage open participation and compel educators to reflect on

learning and instruction from a new perspective. Learners are no

longer passive information recipients, whose role is to memorize or

consume information, but rather active participants, whose role is to

direct their own learning, construct and create knowledge, and

contribute to a virtual community; whereas teachers are guides,

coaches, and mentors to facilitate learning.

However, the potentials of the emerging web 2.0 technologies have not

been fully recognized and tapped. Often we find online instruction

simply duplication of face-to-face lectures, in which technology is

simply an appendage to education instead of playing a more central and

transforming role. Many instructors have not changed their mindset to

accommodate the participatory culture and the new paradigm of learning

and instruction; and little has been done beyond posting syllabi,

assignments, and grading to a learning management system or a web site

that is supposed to be used for collaborative learning. It is argued

that new technologies not only make us more productive, but also help

us become more reflective and creative.? Most importantly,

technologies have afforded us with tools to accomplish goals we would

have not been able to without them. As early as in the 80s, Pea (1985)

argued that technology should not only be used to amplify our thinking

but also to reorganize our mental functioning. Therefore, we are

prompted to fully take advantage of web 2.0 affordances to develop

innovative learning environments and build virtual learning

communities that will motivate and engage learners meaningfully and

interactively in their learning experiences and focus on developing

the 21st century skills that emphasize innovation, creativity,

communication, collaboration, critical thinking, decision making, and

problem solving.

Yet, using emerging technologies to build a virtual learning community

(VLC) is a multifaceted innovation. It not only involves the use of

new technologies, but also new method of learning and new ways of

thinking of learning and instruction. It presents multiple levels of

challenges to both learners and instructors. Subsequently, there are

many issues awaiting to be examined, studied, and addressed, including

learners’ perceptions, motivation and identity when participating in a

VLC, strategies and methods of designing, building, managing, and

evaluating a VLC to develop students critical thinking, problem

solving, and creativity, and teachers’ beliefs about participatory

culture of a virtual learning environment.

This special issue of the KM&EL international journal is dedicated to

the building of VLCs using emerging technologies. In this special

issue, a VLC is defined as both informal, such as one that supports

ongoing professional development, and formal, such as one as found in

a formal course setting that lasts a semester. In this call, we invite

manuscripts that report empirical studies (both quantitative and

qualitative studies) of investigating issues and challenges related to

the building of a VLC, the use or design of tools scaffold the growth

of a VLC, and methods and efforts to create, build, manage, sustain

and evaluate a VLC. In addition, this special issue welcomes

manuscripts discussing conceptual frameworks or theoretical constructs

related to VLC building.

Recommended topics of interest include, but not limited to:

Impact of a Virtual Learning Community

Learners/members' perceptions and their impact on their participation in a VLC

Learners/members' motivation in a VLC

Learners' identity development in a VLC

Teacher or a facilitator's role in a VLC

Role of a VLC on critical thinking and problem solving skill development

Impact of peer interactions on metacognition and self-regulation in a VLC

VLC and reflective learners

Designing and Evaluating a Virtual Learning Community

Tools and strategies to build, manage, and sustain a VLC

Tools and strategies to promote identity development in a VLC

Tools and strategies to facilitate peer interactions, collaboration

and other VLC activities

Tools and strategies to facilitate reflection and self-regulation in a VLC

Tools and strategies to support complex problem solving in a VLC

Tools and methods to evaluate the effectiveness of a VLC

Conceptual Frameworks or Theoretical Constructs about a Virtual

Learning Community

Community of learners and practice

Community of inquiry

Types of communities and their characteristics (e.g., task-based,

knowledge-based, and practice-based, etc.)

Various constructs and factors influencing the success of a VLC

References

Bonk, C.J. (2009). The world is open: How Web technology is

revolutionizing education. Jossey-Base.

Pea, R.D. (1985). Beyond amplification: Using the computer to

reorganize mental functioning. Educational Psychologist, 20(4),

167-182.

Important Dates

Submission due: 20th August, 2011

Notification of decision: 20th October, 2011

Finalization: 20th November 2011

Publication schedule: December 2011

Submission Instructions

Manuscripts should be sent by email to the Guest Editor, Dr. Xun Ge

(xgeou.edu).

Papers must not have been published, accepted for publication, or

presently be under consideration for publication elsewhere. A standard

double-blind review process will be used for selecting papers to be

published in this special issue. Authors should follow the

instructions outlined in the KM&EL Journal Website (see

URLhttp://www.kmel-journal.org/ojs/index.php/online-publication/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions)

For more information about the KM&EL Journal, please visit the web site:

http://www.kmel-journal.org/ojs/index.php/online-publication