Building Relationship Through Learning Communities and Participation in Online Learning Environments: Building Interactions in Online Learning

Introduction

This quote is as true in an online learning environment as it is in the traditional brick and mortar classroom. In essence, “All education-face- to-face, distance mode, online- requires understanding the nature of the medium in order to conceptualize and design it as an educational environment” (Harasim, 1995, p 138). Due to the increase demand for distance education, institutions of higher education are actively exploring opportunities to weave self, subject and students for web-based distance education. These institutions are often faced with challenges such as technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, student knowledge, and content knowledge (Wilson, Zygouris-Coe, Cardullo, & Fong, 2013). These challenges are often compounded by faculty members’ busy schedules, lack of technology and preconceived notions and attitudes. Beyond simply offering online course work, instructors need to know how to set up the online format effectively to present opportunities for student involvement through collaborative discussion, video chats, Wiki pages, Twitter, and blogs to name a few. The pedagogical skills necessary to create effective active learning opportunities will be explored through this chapter. This chapter includes lessons learned from research, vignettes of effective course designs and implementations, and ideas about emerging technologies, and how they can enhance online learning environments.

Selecting Emerging Technology

When preparing to teach a course online, critical emphasis should be placed on the skills required for creating and facilitating effective online course work as well as the issues and ways the course may change for students. For example, it is important for instructors to implement activities that allow students to analyze and utilize critical thinking through emerging technologies such as blogs or Twitter. Often these emerging technologies require the user to assemble and analyze information differently, defying the typical notion of a static text. In a recent listserve discussion (EDUCAUSE, January, 2015) a faculty member was soliciting thoughts on a “good” cloud-based social network platforms that could facilitate substantive organic communication and collaboration amongst past, present, and future students. Many faculty members offered descriptions of the platforms. Table 1 presents a snapshot of the suggestions.