Given the economical, technological, sociological, historical changes taking place all around us, educational institutions have been slow to adapt. These changes have led to ubiquitous access to information and ubiquitous communication. Combined, these two trends lead to new understandings of how people learn and work that, in turn, leads to new ways of thinking about community. Research suggests that real innovation comes when we take the technology for granted. Yet, many of today's educational institutions still see technology as a new innovation, a disruptive innovation (Bowers & Christensen, 1995), thus learning institutions by and large are still a few years off from real innovation. When we examine the idea of communities for learning, instead of focusing on tactics to bring about meaningful growth and change, we need to better define our strategies--we need to know where we want to go, talk openly about them, reflect on them, refine them, and test them out. Creating meaningful communities for practice is an iterative process. Designers can help foster change by designing communities for learning that recognize the key conditions that allow for creativity and innovation to happen. Designers can also help communities for learning by helping community leaders develop rules for engagement that allow for strong, meaningful exchange and reflection.
Tarmo Toikkanen on 04 Sep 09Article abstract: The photo galleries of the internet have raised quite a lot of public discussion, but academic research is just beginning to pay attention to the issue. This research grabs the subject by finding out the meanings given to IRC-galleria concerning its members' social networks. The theoretical framework consists of theories of social networks and communities applied to the context of the internet. Moreover, in analysing the construction of social networks, the research material is analyzed through the concepts of ritual and performance. The research material was generated with 13 semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The interviewees were registered members of IRC-galleria, aged 12-25. Participant observation was conducted by acting as a registered member of IRC-galleria during the course of the research. The interview material was analyzed with theory-bound qualitative content analysis. Meanings given to IRC-galleria were understood as interpretations the interviewees give to their subjective experiences, and therefore also bounded to cultural meaning structures. The rituals of maintaining social networks were approached from a social constructionistic perspective: the interest was on how the social networks are reconstructed in social interaction. The central finding of the research was that already established, "offline" networks play a significant role in being a member of IRC-galleria. IRC-galleria can be interpreted as a way to maintain both local and dispersed networks in a society where group identities are not self-evident. New friendships can be established in IRC-galleria, but personal interests are significant in this, not the possibility to act anonymously, which instead was the claim of previous research. Different interaction rituals are performed for reconstructing the established social networks. IRC-galleria should not therefore be seen solely as a stage for self-promotion, but also as a medium for promoting s