E-community Design for Teachers - Essay Example

E-community Design for Teachers Introduction E-community for teachers can be defined as a programwhich supports and facilitates sharing of information through information communication technology or information learning technology (ICT or ILT). A number of scholars have limited the definition of e-community to the general use of computer networking and thus they have excluded the free-standing technology such as the videos. Hence, one major advantage of using this wider definition of e-community is that it covers a broader scope of teaching and learning models and procedures that can be traced and referenced (Andrews & Haythoronthwaite, 2011). Teachers are a community that can be referred to as teaching and learning practitioners whose key role is to direct and support the students in learning. Thus, this paper presents an e-learning community for teachers, meant for interactions whose key purposes are learning, sharing of issues ideas and knowledge through discussions boards and chat rooms. In addition, the paper presents the intended audience, existing skills in relation to the e-community participation, a justification for considering this proposed community as an opportunity for collective learning and the education rationale for the elements in the design. 1. Key features of the e-community a. Intended Audience This e-community is targeting professional teachers across all the teaching fields or rather subjects. Moreover, it has no restrictions to new or aspiring teachers. Thus, it is open to every trained individual or teacher whose sole aim in the profession is to impart knowledge in students. The e-community targets secondary school teachers; both trainees and graduates since they all fall under one umbrella. This community design is going to be effective for High School teachers since it would create opportunities for interactions and sharing of ideas in various fields; sciences, mathematics, languages and humanities. Thus, this community would be effective as it would enhance teaching ethics and skills across the members of the community. b. Existing skills in relation to e-community participation Most teachers in this profession lack the appropriate negotiation and interaction skills in e-communities. Moreover, they lack independent evaluation or rather job assessment skills, reflections and motivation while discussing crucial professional aspects. Many teachers have poor discussion skills as depicted by how they handle class discussions. Thus, such a community emphasizes on appropriate discussion skills since learning take place through such procedures. c. Main purpose of the e-community This e-community is set to offer mentorship for all categories of teachers, whether new or old in the field. Thus, it would develop integration into the teaching staffs in learning institutions which would in return create appropriate platforms for learning, sharing issues, ideas and knowledge about teaching, handling students, maintaining professional ethics and planning for lessons and courses. d. Technology Stewardship The platform which would be used for this e-community shall be the web 2.0 which fully supports the interaction design and general functionality which would be required by the platform’s plug-ins in order to offer efficient communication. Thus, the functionality of this community comprises of video chats, forums, e-conferences, chat rooms, discussion boards, member profiles and registration. 2. Justification for considering the proposed e-community for teachers a. Audience A standard language in representation of teachers’ ideas, issues and knowledge through discussions cannot be imposed (Schrage, 1990). However, through an e-community, such aspects can be encouraged and codified. In addition, as much as various communities use terms such as seminars and learning outcomes in different senses, their usage and evidence are converging. This is due to professionalization of teaching and learning, the development of standardization and quality assurance of this profession across the traditional boundaries of given subjects and the expanding volumes of teacher-oriented conferences and literatures. Initially, the post-training and development of teachers confined to specialists researchers in the field of education. Thus, e-community for teachers offers teachers an opportunity to learn, teach and develop in their profession through sharing of knowledge (Barab, Kling & Gray, 2004). There is that seems not to be sealed between standard and conventional vocabularies which meet the rigorous demand for the technical specifications (United Nations Publications, 2005). Thus, a teacher or rather a contributor to the e-community has to be in a perfect position of distinguishing between challenging vocabularies such as cognitive apprenticeship and cognitive scaffolding approach to teaching and learning (Song, 2009). Those individuals who contribute to learning and teaching communities lack such qualms. Therefore, structured plain English remains a target in this e-community but it cannot be assumed either plain or structured English can ensure that terms are consistently applied by teachers in this community. It is quite obvious that when teachers are faced with a list of several terms, they will opt to use a single term to describe most of the things; this is the term they have realized being used with greater approval from the members of the community in various discussions. Therefore, with an e-community for teachers, teaching as a profession will find its way to transforming from the many theoretical terms to learning in form of discussion structures (Wenger, White, Smith & Rowe, 2005). It is quite vital that the teaching and learning procedures which are developed and shared through this community would become applicable and shareable; ability to be operational in a number of contexts. Thus, through shared ideas on teaching models, teachers will be in a perfect position of selecting the most applicable model in any context. These models are shared from diverse perspectives but they are adaptable according to the new demands and any other teaching frameworks to be developed in future (Renninger & Shumar, 2002).Therefore, due to the many challenges in teaching as a profession, e-community offers a formal representation that will most likely serve as a resource and a perfect opportunity for discussions on teaching practices. Hence, usability and recognition of this community is fully assured through involvement of teachers in embedding and evaluating the outcomes of shared knowledge through this platform. b. Designing e-community for teachers Designing of an e-community for teachers would create good opportunities for professional teachers to access additional teaching and learning knowledge through shared discussions via electronic media. This would foster and support collaboration and flexibility among practitioners. Virtual discussions would enable teachers to access additional teaching information and models that would add value to their profession regardless of geographical location (Wenger-Trayner, 2006). Moreover, the internet might offer some level of privacy whereby a teacher can discuss a particular idea with another unknown teacher. The idea of privacy and accessibility to a platform that can be accessed by teachers from various geographical locations creates a favorable opportunity whereby whenever a teacher is faced with issues or rather whenever one needs to discuss an idea with colleagues in the community. Moreover, teachers will have the ability to access teaching tools in various levels offered within the community. This would build a strong bond or rather relationship between teachers of diverse races, ranks and teaching fields regardless of the experience they have. Thus, exchange of information, sharing of knowledge and supporting new teachers in the field through discussions will assist to raise the level of social interactions that would in return be beneficial to all the teachers being served in the e-community (Zaphiris & Ang, 2012). c. The proposed community as a collective knowledge-sharing community This proposed e-community will entail an aspect of collective online discussion platform whereby the intentions and interests of its members or participants are common thus providing appropriate opportunities for collective sharing of knowledge, ideas and issues. Furthermore, this community enhances relationships and respects diversity of ideas from teachers irrespective of the level of education or rank in an institution. Sharing of knowledge and experiences through discussions encourages collaboration and togetherness among teachers in the society (Renninger & Shumar, 2002). This makes cooperation to be an essential aspect in the e-community. Cognitive and social characteristics in this proposed e-community will definitely shape and add value to the teaching experience in the teaching profession (Garrison, 2011). Thus, existence of equal status across all the members of the community whereby members are likely to take part is discussions when there is some level of transparency in proficiency in the discussed topic creates some sense of belonging or rather membership. In this proposed e-community, equality for all members would give the members appropriate opportunities to contribute and collaborate. Therefore, this e-community for teachers allows both less experienced and more experienced teachers to share ideas and knowledge about the probable issues surrounding their teaching profession. 3. Story board The official site for this community must aim at engaging its members (Rheingold, 1993). This will be achieved via a relatively cheap and easy navigation. Thus, any member of the community using this site should be in apposition to get clear instructions and easy directions in order to locate the most crucial or rather the areas of interest in the site. Moreover, density in this site must not be in the user interface, but in the connections that would be developed by the users. Therefore, this proposed community would provide profession building for teachers who will become members regardless of their ranks, identity or geographical location. For teachers to come up with connections from diverse locations, they should provide a visual representation of the shared discussions in a sequence that would contribute to more engagements with the e-community. From the shared discussions, learning would be enhanced and developed over a number of cycles. However, such phases might not be sequenced linearly. The structure of this design is based on the examples that reflect the concerns of a relatively easy accessibility and navigation which makes it a professional design (Renninger & Shumar, 2002). Diagrams The e-community site design includes ideas that emerge from the above example. Thus, it would use a web 2.0 platform which fully supports the interaction design and general functionality which would be required by the platform’s plug-ins in order to offer efficient communication According to Renninger & Shumar (2002), the site should be easy to access and navigate through a number of links which are placed in the homepage alongside related pages. In addition, the e-community should provide sufficient flexibility for any restructure (Thompson & Macdonald, 2005).The links to the crucial pages would be available in various sections of the main page. The site’s homepage would display a directory together with a general map as shown below: Key: NEG – Negotiation port Features of an e-community site are relatively crucial as they offer the designer a broader view of what to be entailed in a site (Renninger & Shumar, 2002). The Main Page offers all the crucial information concerning the site such as “About us, Rules and Regulations, Registration, Services and Contacts. The Main Page is further divided into Administration and Members sections which entail basic information for the administration and every member of the community. The administration port posts all the updates concerning the e-community and teaching as a profession. These sections are linked to other ports such as the suggestions or comments port, personal ideas port and general forums port. The suggestions and comments port offer access to participants to the relevant teaching models and techniques from the site. Thus, this enables participants to add or develop a number of areas in this field. The forum is an open port where all the members are free to share their ideas on how teaching as a profession can be improved. Hence, here is where ideas will flow in according to specific fields of teaching, whether mathematics, languages, humanities or sciences. The NEG ports offer interaction environment between members and the administration of the community. Every NEG node is subdivided as shown below: NEG 101 forms the main node which reiterates information in every unit and provides location details for appropriate documents posted by other members in the site. The other nodes NEG 102, 103,104 and 105 will offer forums for sharing information through discussions for the members of this community. The forums would be open for all the members with a single administrator to provide guidance. 4. Education Rationale Teachers always gain understanding of the essentials of their profession by expanding on their knowledge through operating on e-communities. Such communities derive extra knowledge and information from vicarious and personal experiences that are associated with learning socially (Thompson & MacDonald, 2005). The community considers that the online sharing of information would be another crucial aspect that would create more opportunities for them to improve their skills and models in teaching using this design. Keeping professional teachers engaged in all the aspects of the teaching experiences is quite imperative. This can be achieved through online forums and surveys by teachers from diverse locations, levels and ranks in their profession. Thus, an online discussion for teachers adds value to the teaching skills and models that benefit and enrich their teaching experiences. As the community grows, seeing teachers gaining desired results through information sharing create greater expectations that act as positive incentives for teachers. Thus, teachers or rather any individual who is ready to learn will always learn from example of other people and through becoming part of the community. Moreover, one of the crucial parts of online sharing of information is obtaining experience as a team or group. Through discussions, teachers would improve and enhance their teaching skills. Thus, discussion provides an extremely strong link between informal and formal social learning that take place in a wider social network (Song, 2009). In conclusion e-community design for teacher is a special aspect in the teaching profession as it would enable teachers to add value to their teaching skills, experience and models. The mentioned above design entails a site or rather homepage that is made up of the Main Page, Suggestions and comments port, the forum port, members’ port and the NEG port. All these features are vital as they assist in sharing of information through discussions and individual interactions among teachers. In addition, the site is open for anyone who is in a teaching profession and one has to go through a registration process so as to become a member of the community. E-community for teachers considers the contexts of compulsory learning, that is the classroom and distance, whereby information and communication technology can be used (Garrison, 2011). Moreover, it assumes that learning effectiveness is always defined according to the outcomes of learning which are independent of specific methods that are available. Eventually, e-learning community for teachers aims at supporting informed choices among teachers in cases where information communication technology-supported option is available. Teachers tend to use an e-community for learning and teaching. For instance, they can host discussions that are problem-based approach in order to plan their courses and lessons. In such discussions, various models are described specifically in the planning context to imply the intended approach to be used in learning. However, these discussions do not present common terminologies and are difficult to evaluate, generalize and compare across several contexts. References ANDREWS, R. & HAYTHORONTHWAITE, C. (2011). E-learning: Theory and Practice. SAGE. Print BARAB, S., KLING, R. & GRAY, J. H. (2004). Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning. Cambridge University Press. Print GARDNER, J. & HOLMES, B. (2006). E-learning: Concepts and Practice. Print. GARRISON, R. D. (2011). E-learning in the 21st Century: A framework for Research for and Practice. Taylor & Francis. Print RENNINGER, A. K. & SHUMAR, W. (2002). Building Virtual Communities: Learning and Change in Cyberspace. Cambridge University Press. Print. RHEINGOLD, H. (1993). The Virtual Community. MIT Press. Print SCHRAGE, M. (1990). Shared minds: The new technologies of collaboration. New York: Random House. SONG, F. W. (2009). Virtual Communities: Bowling Alone, Online Together. Peter Lang. Print THOMPSON, T.L. & MACDONALD (2005). ‘Community building, emergent design and expecting the unexpected: Creating a quality e-learning experience’, The Internet and Higher Education, vol.8, 3, p.233 -249. WENGER, E., WHITE, N., SMITH, J. D., ROWE, K. (2005) ‘Technology for communities’, CEFRIO, viewed 21 April 2012, http://technologyforcommunities.com/ WENGER-TRAYNER, E. (2006). Communities of practice: a brief introduction. Retrieved From: http://wenger-trayner.com/theory/ UNITED NATIONS PUBLICATIONS (2005). Building E-community for Rural Development. United Nations Publications. Print ZAPHIRIS, P. & ANG, C. S. (2012). Social Computing and Virtual Communities. CRC Press. Print. Read More