Discovering and developing communities of e-learning practice

This short paper reports on a one-year teaching fellowship undertaken at The University of the Arts London. There are two elements to the fellowship. The first was to explore the range of e-learning implementations across the five constituent colleges that make up the institution. The second is to consider the development of a community of e-learning practitioners across the dispersed sites of the University using the theories of Communities of Practice by Wenger (1998) and Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002).

The fellowship to date has uncovered a range of innovative approaches to e-learning practice across a range of disciplines in Art and Design at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. The focus of the initial study is on implementations that foster collaboration, cross-disciplinary practice and community to effectively enhance learning using both blended and online approaches, such as blogs, wikis and the development of open software tools.

The paper presents case studies from Fine Art, Digital Arts, Graphic Design, Fashion and Photography at both undergraduate and post graduate level. These detailed both student and staff initiated implementations, and discussed their responses in terms of the changing roles and expectations in relation to existing pedagogic research.

The aim of the initial survey is to collate the range of practice and to document it as an online resource to act as an initial focus to bring together a community of practitioners with an existing and emerging commitment to these implementations. The paper will report on the process of designing an online resource to both document existing practices and to encourage the development of a community of e-learning practitioners through support, collaboration, dialogue and the sharing of experiences.

Wenger, E. 1998. Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Wenger, E. McDermott R., Snyder W. 2002. Cultivating communities of practice: a guide to managing knowledge. Harvard Business School Press.