Study Title: Children online: Learning in a virtual community of practice
Study Author: Thomas, A.
Publication Details: E-Learning, vol. 2, no. 1, 2005, pp. 27-38.
Summary:
What did the research aim to do?
This study aimed to investigate discursive and social practices of a virtual community (The
Gathering of the Elves) comprising 60 young people involved in a range of online activities related
to the Tolkien-inspired online world of ‘Middle Earth’. It sought to identify kinds of learning that
occur in the community’s virtual spaces and map key characteristics of that learning, and to
consider possible implications for classroom-based literacy education.
How was the study designed?
The research comprised a virtual ethnography designed to access participant understandings and
meanings about their practices and learning. The theoretical perspective employs a social theory of
learning and draws specifically on Etienne Wenger’s 1998 account of ‘communities of practice’.
Four main methods of data collection were employed. Participants were observed engaging in roleplaying and discussions on a role-playing forum created by four of the group’s members.
Participant activities (synchronous discussions and role-playing) were also observed and recorded
in an online graphical chat world. A third method involved collecting relevant artifacts (like avatars).
Finally, extensive online interviews were conducted using email and a tag board on the
researcher’s weblog (with particular emphasis on four key informants, two male and two female,
aged 13-14 years). Data analysis applied concepts from Wenger’s social theory of learning and
from theories of language features to transcripts of interviews and records of observations.
This study reports work from a larger and ongoing investigation. Its dataset is based mainly on
interviews, although these are informed by data collection from the larger study. Consequently,
readers need to refer to other published components of the research to get the full picture. These
are conveniently listed on the researcher’s weblog (see below).
What were the findings?
Rather than reflecting combinations of expert and novice (as in Vygotskian approaches to learning
theory), members of this learning community worked things out together to achieve purposes for
mutual benefit. Learning (e.g., how to create the forum, how to participate appropriately) was
characterised by intense collaboration. Participants extended much respect and support to each
other’s writing. Learning what to do and how to do it also reflected a high level of trial-and-error
activity, of ‘puzzling it out’. Participants did not think of their community as a learning community or
of their participation as a learning process. To them it was simply a game, and becoming better at
the game involved hard work. Accordingly, participants made heavy time investments in study,
emulation, and practice in the pursuit of fun and in creating characters that would perform well in
the shared enterprise of role-playing.
Participants’ role-playing language was sophisticated. It displayed high lexical density and
complexity, detailed descriptive nominal groups, and a high degree of symbolism and figurative
expression. Activity in the community indicated that the ways learned in one community can be
adapted and realised in another, with imagination playing an important mediating role. Use of
storytelling was important in representing the community to its members and for providing contexts
for its future expansion. Participants were keenly aware that to be literate is to have a form of
power, and literate behaviour was among the most valued forms of ‘capital’ in the community.
What conclusions were drawn from the research?
Three main conclusions arise from the study. First, given the desire to negotiate mediated
environments of communication, young learners often do not need experts to guide them. They
work together to solve problems or teach themselves through self-study, self-initiated research,
and trial and error. Second, the skills and understandings young learners achieve in pursuit of
active and committed membership of virtual communities may easily exceed many of the
expectations of teachers in schools. Finally, opportunities for freedom of expression, attainment
and exercise of power, and opportunities to create meaningful relationships with others offer young
learners places where they can be themselves. Under such conditions, the motivation to belong
becomes the drive for learning.
What are the implications of the study?
Study findings imply that parents, teachers, policymakers, librarians, administrators and software
developers need to respond to characteristics of children’s learning within virtual settings. To this
end, it will be important to offer teachers professional development pertaining to cultures of
cyberspace and cyberliteracies. Furthermore, as knowledge from students, teachers and children
regarding new and changing literacies is developed, used and shared, teachers and policy makers
must become curriculum builders and make appropriate changes at the curriculum policy level.
Generalisability and relevance for Queensland
This study coheres well with influential recent work in the area of learning principles and games
design (Gee 2003). It has particular relevance to Queensland in light of its ‘smart state’ policy
direction. Together with work like Gee’s, it provides a way of thinking about Education
Queensland’s learning ideals outside currently conceived ‘rich tasks’ parameters.
Where can interested readers find out more?
Thomas, A. 2005, E-Selves: Interrogating the New Media Subject (Weblog), Available at:
http://anyaka.blogspot.com
Gee, J. 2003, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, Palgrave, New
York.
Wenger, E. 1998, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge University
Press, London.
Keywords: learning, learning communities, identity, new technologies, power, adolescents