Rethinking expansive learning: Experience from an educational design supporting authors in practice

Abstract: This paper analyses an online community of master’s students taking a course in ICT and organisational learning. The students initiated and facilitated an educational design for organisational learning called Proactive Review in the organisation where they are employed. By using an online discussion forum on Google groups, they created new ways of reflecting and learning. We used netnography to select qualitative postings from the online community and expansive learning concepts for data analysis. The findings show how students changed practices of organisational learning in their professional organisation and how they developed their identity to become more skilled practitioners. We discuss the effects of the written discussions and reflections on the students’ endeavour to become authors in practice. Our contribution to the research consists of considerations of changing the spoken word to the written word, which lacks spontaneity but supports equality among students.