Networked elearning and collaborative knowledge building: design and facilitation

This paper addresses the core goals for educators to stimulate participation across diversity (including life trajectories and culture) and motivate learners to engage in negotiation of meaning and knowledge building dialogue in the processes of networked learning. The paper reports on a Danish masters online course on networked learning for educators that attempted to realize these goals. The participating teacher learned important methods, including moderation, through experience, guided by a teacher educator whose instructional design was based on communities of practice for participants with different backgrounds, cultures, age, and prerequisites in a shared learning endeavor on the Web. The experience supports a twofold foundation for instructional design: the learning theoretical concept of Etienne Wenger (1998) and an orientation toward participant cultures in terms of experiences and competencies, in order to facilitate collaborative knowledge building online.