Introduction
Janet is Educational Manager at Douglas Mawson Institute of TAFE in South Australia. As a Flexible Learning Leader of 2002, Janet’s project focused on building online communities.
This article summarises the outcomes of Janet’s project. The full report can be found at the link at the top of this article. To find out what Janet is currently involved in, select the link at the bottom of this article entitled – ‘Janet’s 2003 Update’. To read about Janet’s tafestudents.community, go to her recent article: ‘From Here to Community – tafestudents.community’ found under ‘Learnscope Projects’.
Professional Development Goals
• To learn how to build and maintain a virtual learning community and to
maintain it within an existing organisational web site structure
• To base research on the principles of life-long learning and social inclusion
Strategies
• Web research, conferences (online and physical), three mentors, formal
and informal courses in leadership, management, online facilitating and
moderating, storytelling, work-based learning projects (two local virtual
communities), sharing with colleagues.
Outcomes
• Increased confidence in ability to influence strategic direction and provide
leadership in flexible learning within the organization and across SA
Learning & implications
Summary of learning
Community builders (virtual or real)
must
• be prepared to listen carefully and constantly to the community for
whom they are working
• relinquish ownership of all parts of the community over time.
Initial characteristics of a successful virtual community are
• a common purpose
• a driving passion
• a sense of place
• an eagerness for participation
• an opportunity for strong
partnerships
• an intuitive understanding of the political environment.
Information, resources and communication tools are the
cornerstones for a virtual learning community.
Implications of learning
• Community builders can design frameworks, but it is the people
who build the sense and value of a virtual community
• A community is not only a place to have your own needs met, but a
place where you try to meet other people’s needs also.
• Communicative competence is an individual’s most valuable asset
and human and social capital are society’s most precious resource
• Virtual learning communities facilitate people-centred learning:
I-learning – personalised learning that goes beyond e-learning
The future
In 2003 personal goals are to:
• Manage an integrated and dynamic website that incorporates the Virtual
Learning Communities concept within the business fabric of DMIT’s
website
• Grow the Community component of tafestudents.com and promote the
website as a Community Learning Centre for VET Learners across
Australia
• Design a virtual learning community model that is a practical and effective
change management tool for flexible learning
• Provide support, help and advice to anyone wanting to build a sustainable
Virtual Learning Community
• Continue to collaborate with VET professionals and Flexible Learning
Leaders to develop and sustain innovative thinking for flexible learning
• Provide leadership and promote innovation in Flexible Learning through
national and international conference presentations
For flexible learning in VET in the next two years, goals are to:
• Design person-centred learning rather than courseware to meet the
needs of a more mobile, flexible and demanding workforce, developing
community partnerships
• Deliver learning more flexibly and training educators in the art of mentoring
and coaching, rather than teaching and training, to support a personcentred
approach to learning.
For the long-term:
• By 2015 people won't even refer to "Web communities" anymore and
virtual learning communities will be viewed as ways to meet people, stay in
touch with families, do work, study, buy things, without doing anything
more remarkable than making a phone call
• The Web will be integrated into current technologies like the telephone or
TV because the bandwidth will improve, there will be standard Net
Protocols and it will become affordable and desirable for most of the
world’s population.
• Learning institutions and communities across the world want to harness
the power of the web to influence and empower
• VET needs to recognize that the ground swell of community-based
development programs heralds the growth of community-based learning
and the demise of traditional, institutionalised learning
Janet’s 2003 Update:
http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/leaders/fl_leaders/fll02/updates/update_simpson.pdf
