Virtual Communities of Inquiry

Introduction

Nowadays, there is a widespread conviction that the evolution of computer hardware and Web (“blogosphere”) sources can assist instructors and scholars to enrich learning processes with innovative technologically advanced environments. Social interactions and managerial responsibilities are also formed through humans’ relationships that defined as frameworks of a community leading to a novel knowledge field with the basic principles of the contemporary pedagogy, such as cooperativeness, cohesion, trust, and mutual support among members (Pellas, Peroutseas, & Kazanidis, 2013).

A careful planning of developing learning communities must be associated with users’ (instructors and students) demands in order to be achieved common goals in a persistent workflow. According to Conrad (2002) the duration of the community’s Lifecycle has been widely accepted as a component of a network learning environment. The user’s presence in the community established as an alternative constructive approach in order to be achieved a high-order relationship of interaction that promoted from the students’ capacities to construct and support positive learning consequences (Garrison & Archer, 2000).

The latest technological functions of Information, Communications Technologies and Media Resources (ICT & MR) with the rapid growth of broadband networks like Web 2.0 applications and interactive distributed three-dimensional (3D) virtual environments (3DVEs) have considerably changed contemporary instructional formats (blended and online) of the e-Education. Moreover, social networking systems have changed the Web 2.0 cyberspace in a rapidly growing communication system bringing to the front several facets of a “networked collectivity.” Virtual environments (or virtual worlds) in this vein can convert the existing distributed networks into habitable and navigable three-dimensional (3D) locations that can be separated into virtual “places” or “spaces.” From this perspective students learn in collaborative workshops and share their experiences synchronously (VoIP or brainstorming) or asynchronously (important messages or gestures). These premises have frequently recapitulated in the last decade through advanced learning practices with the support of virtual worlds (VWs) by enhancing the technological literacy of users (students and instructors). Likewise, the corollary of interactivity and social formalization of modeling allows users to design learning activities, in conjunction with contemporary pedagogical approaches. The emergence of innovative learning technologies has caused profound changes in the current educational system.

The technological infrastructure that was supported from two-dimensional (2D) Learning Management Environments (LMS) and the development of their descendants, i.e. the 3D systems included also virtual communities in turn offered more advantages as a learning process always regards. The typical users’ appearances (instructors and students), as cyber entities (avatars) in a common virtual place where they interact simultaneously even from a distance (or not) have significantly influenced the nature of teaching and learning practices. A popular support on this issue is the extension of the computer system that follows a collaborative pedagogical approach that can be utilized from students’ social interactions with ICT&MR, called as Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL).

Although recent studies (Delfino & Manca, 2007; Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2009) have revealed that should be clearly defined a framework for understanding both students engagement and analysis of a constructing knowledge field that is created from their participation in collaborative activities through the Web 2.0 sources. Until now teaching and researching fields determinate the entire “status quo” for the acquisition of knowledge through online environments based on the analysis of:

• 1.

  The interaction of discussion groups, the sense of social presence or cooperation among participants in (asynchronous) learning environments (Rourke & Anderson, 2002).

• 2.

  The interaction and knowledge’s structure in communities (Swan & Shih, 2005).

• 3.

  The construction of an environment can promote students’ critical thinking (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2001).