Sociocultural Analysis of Online Professional Development

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511805080.018

14 - Sociocultural Analysis of Online Professional Development

A Case Study of Personal, Interpersonal, Community, and Technical Aspects

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012

James H. Gray and

Edited by

Rob Kling and

James H. Gray: Affiliation:
SRI International
Deborah Tatar: Affiliation:
SRI International
Sasha Barab: Affiliation:
Indiana University
Rob Kling: Affiliation:
Indiana University
James H. Gray: Affiliation:
SRI International, Stanford, California

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Summary

Robert is from Iowa, now living in a small town near the Rhone river valley in central France with his French wife and two children. He teaches English as a foreign language in the local high school, where he has only a handful of colleagues who share his educational interests. He turned to the Internet five or six years ago to find “intelligent contact with English-speaking people.” More recently, he joined an email list about an online pedagogical approach called InternetInquiry. Then, while planning to lead local workshops on “teacher training in educational technology,” Robert joined Tapped In (http://www.tappedin.org) – a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) designed to promote teacher professional development – and soon “fell in love” with the environment. By the time we interviewed him seven months later, he had designed his online office, attended more than forty seminars – including monthly sessions on the topic of InternetInquiry – and launched his own weekly seminar about language learning.

In this chapter, we describe and analyze Robert's experience in Tapped In and related changes in his professional practice. While his experience is not necessarily typical of participants in Tapped In or other online communities, the particular details of his activities illustrate issues common to many educators who seek to develop their professional practice through participation with colleagues in online communities.

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Type: Chapter
Information: Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning , pp. 404 - 436

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511805080.018 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2004

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