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013091 e-LEARNING EXPERIENCES, MODELS AND THEORIES 1 

Assessment Task 1.2 – Analysis of Selected Learning Community 

      The community that I have selected is the Decorative Concrete Forum, an on-line organisation that links industry with individuals engaged with the utility of concrete as an architectural feature rather than its predominant structural usage. This community is United States based and open to all comers. The site covers many different areas for the architectural use of concrete but this outline shall limit the discussion to just one specific area; concrete used in concrete countertops. The description that I would use to define this site is that it is a networked platform initially conceived to allow people to discuss and swap ideas throughout the United States. As the interest arose so the topics streamlined and so the site grew in its refinement. It is noteworthy to add that the Forum has many sponsors with these being industry suppliers to the concrete market and it is a definite and legitimate way for them to provide information and introduce suppliers’ resources to those using concrete in non-structural applications.

      As already mentioned I have restricted the learning to just one topic being, concrete mix design for countertop applications. In observing internet traffic across the forum what I found was there were three distinct issues apparent in the learning community. There were those who were genuine with their responses in providing relevant and technical argument that was sound. There was a second group that were sceptical about whether the advice would be forth-coming through this medium of communication which was questioning the integrity of the site, its membership and their willingness to contribute freely to the forum. The last group involved those who had established their contacts in the forum at an earlier time and had developed on-line network social discussion between themselves and new community participants. The ‘passport’ to be invited to this third tier was what your contributions were. Those who were sceptical of the rigour of the site eventually left the discussion after their initial contribution or very shortly after their successive negative comments passed were ignored by others wishing to contribute genuinely. 

      My contribution to the learning community as an expert in Concrete Mix design was one in which I could contribute at both the technical, and practical advice application level. What I found in engaging in this community (and other sites within the Forum) was that there was strong knowledge pockets existing throughout the contributions with several of the participants equal or surpassing my ability but most of the participants lacked foundation knowledge in the subject area. The ways that I saw this dealt with was by engagement in a separate off-line internet discussion by an expert contributor with another less informed and a further example whereby an expert contributor gave out their telephone details to assist another learner. In enquiring further into this latter example the person offer the telephone contact was a consulting Concrete Technologist and had detail embedded within the site that allowed others to contact him. It is unknown if the pursuant had to pay for further information but in appeared that the consultant was genuine and offered his knowledge freely by his actions throughout the discourse. As to my participation onsite I engaged with a specific contributor and found that the passing of information on the forum itself was short, truncated and appeared inadequate for the depth of knowledge that was needed to be explained and detailed. I engaged with this person separately by internet and the ‘barriers’ of the open-forum discussion became removed and then the specific and detailed knowledge could be passed readily and uninterrupted discourse happened quickly and freely. Needless-to-say I have another learner engaged with me introduced by on-line learning! It is interesting to note that throughout my discussions there was no specific engagement and contribution by any of the major industry suppliers who were listed as site sponsors. I don’t know whether they are not choosing to monitor the site or whether they feel that their organisation’s contribution in the area of concrete mix design would open the opportunity for litigious action(s) being brought against the organisation and its individuals. 

      As a vehicle for learning this community in the specific domain of Concrete Mix Design I chose to investigate it is not a strong learning forum in itself, yet its community appears highly engaged with the processes of learning and developing knowledge. I think it is highly important to separate the learning platform used to define the forum from the social learning happening between the participants. It is the social engagement between people that allows those genuine individuals wishing to develop their learning (irrespective of their current learning level), to link with those experts who are again willing to share their knowledge that allows this to happen. As an expert within this field I mimicked what another had done by providing specific knowledge off-line of the forum. These actions highlight exactly the situation occurring in every learning community, that being; that all learning requires that there are those with expertise who are willing to contribute; there are those who are passionate about their learning and that thirst for knowledge is the driving focus for their success in seeking out their superiors. 

      In my initial engagement with this forum I was looking specifically for how to transfer ‘skills’ through on-line learning. As engaging as this site is and the variety of appeal it has across the world with its information exchange over a wide subject arena, the frontier of teaching and training of experientially based skills has not been addressed primarily because this mode of learning requires an ‘observation and comment’ phase as part of the feedback from the superior/ master/ or teacher to the learner. Can this happen on-line? I think, “Yes”, once camera and sound are integrated as part of the technology either through analysis of time-shifted recordings in training or through real-time observation and contribution. An example of the latter that I am familiar with is in the field of on-line surgery; whereby experts across the world are specifically invited into the surgical team who contribute their knowledge on-line, in real time, to those surgeons at hand performing the operation. Separately, there is a continuing passive observation of many of these surgical proceedings which is broadcast to surgeons-in-training throughout hospitals around the world either as a real-time event or time-shifted recording of the same.

      In analysing the on-line forum’s processes the outstanding element was the open acceptance of people who had problems and the willingness of others to contribute to them. The downside of this was the level of assistance offered by those contributing. The learning that happens on-line is best linked to the metaphor of a ‘spiral’; with learning taking place iteratively from the contributors between them. This is part of Field & Ford (1995) and Scott (1999) conceptual understanding of learning. When an expert offers opinion on a subject then the ‘learning spiral’ becomes exaggerated and steepened considerably to the point that a ‘step-change’ in the knowledge threshold occurs for the learners. These ‘steps’ were specific to individual learning that took place between the person I engaged with off-line and what was offered by the other individual I mentioned earlier. In my engagement and observation of this forum, in of the totality of the learning process I assess that are two concurrent happenings that take place in an unmoderated learning community with the first being the slow ‘learning spiral’ continuum happening with the on-line community who are under-developed in their subject knowledge of a topic and then the occasional rapid increase in the ‘learning spiral’ that takes place as experts enter and contribute to the discussion. The second is where there is continued off-line learning led by an expert which is highly focused, specific in application and fast tracks  selected individual(s) in their field of knowledge as a sideline event happening. The learning in this mode is ‘step-change’ in type. In my engagement with the forum the biggest disruption in the learning community I viewed was separating the ‘social actions’ happening on-line from the ‘learning actions’ happening in an unmoderated forum. It is for this reason why I chose to engage with the individual off-line. 

      When I interpret my experience of this on-line learning with writings about the same I find I am in agreement with Saunder’s (2005, p. 34) comments in reference to the social psychology issues of adult learning and that learning for adults is frustrated because this forum is engaged in social learning theory which fixates on using the experiences and examples of others (which appears to have no reference base for the inexperienced learner and therefore has to be accepted at face value) from traditional behaviouralist learning theory that they have encountered throughout their life as,

“Adults can learn about behaviour from human models but may not perform that behaviour.”, (Saunders 1999, p. 33).

The teaching of skills (about which I am interested), requires situated learning environments. According to Cornford (1999, p. 75),       

      “Many situated learning theorists highlight the obvious difficulties in obtaining transfer , and the problem of school learning separated from real-life applications, but fall relatively short on detailed analysis of processes involved in actual learning in cultural contexts.”  

because of the dilemma of trying to provide education on-line about topics which are experientially based there is genuine frustration I found in engaging in on-line discussion when there are negative comments about the integrity of the on-line community. (It was in reference to the comments passed about willingness of others to contribute to the community to a newly engaged seeking knowledge.) I followed another’s example and for the advice required effectively turned the learning experience for this individual into a mentoring situation but only for the extent of this particular subject area on mix design.

      As a final point I mentioned that learning will take place for an individual if, “they are passionate about their learning and that thirst for knowledge is the driving focus for their success in seeking out their superiors”, and this aligns well with Wenger’s (1999, p. 225), introductory comments that, “Learning cannot be designed. … … Learning happens, design or no design.” Wenger’s further comment (1999, p. 229),

“Communities of practice are about content – about learning as a living experience of negotiated meaning – not about form.”,  

is perhaps the most compelling statement I read during this analysis because it implies that whilst we can design the system in which we want the learning to be facilitated within there is no control on the pathway by which learning takes place or develops.

References: 

Cornford, I.R., 1999, ‘Chapter 4 – Social Learning’, in Adult Educational Psychology, J.A. Athanasou, ed., Social Science Press, Katoomba, pp. 73-96. 

Decorative Concrete Forum www.decorativeconcreteforums.com/forum.php

Field, L. & Ford, B., (1995), Managing Organisational Learning: From Rhetoric to Reality, Longman Australia Pty Ltd: Melbourne. 

Saunders, S., 2005, ‘Chapter 3 – Social Psychology of Adult Learning’, in Adult Educational Psychology, J.A. Athanasou, ed., Social Science Press, Katoomba, pp. 25-71. 

Scott, G., 1999, Change Matters: making a difference in education and training, Sydney, Allen & Unwin. 

Wenger, E., 1999, ‘Epilogue – Design for learning’, in Communities of Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 225-257. www.wenger_epilogue_design_for_learning_pp_225-257