Online Collaborative Learning

John Cuthell, Helen Caldwell, Hanefa Osman, Christina Preston, Sarah Younie (MirandaNet Fellowship) | View as single page | Feedback/Impact

Key findings and ideas

A key conclusion looking across all the findings is that professional collaboration and knowledge sharing is powerfully supported when the teachers, as learners, belong to a Community of Practice (CoP) where different forms of knowledge and expertise are developed, shared and refined in response to the tasks that the community face. If we consider the metaphor of rhizomes learning, then the initial assumptions of connection and heterogeneity, with any point being connected to any other, then the collaborative activities of the professional Communities of Practice detailed above have connected, and continue to connect, with one another and work to develop new ideas and cross-fertilise existing ones. Members link to other communities across national barriers and time zones. The underlying knowledge of these CoPs is used to generate new ideas and practice, with new shoots emerging in new places. It is an existential state of professional awareness that precludes stasis.