Advances in Research on Networked Learning

Networked learning is learning in which information and communications technology (ICT) is used to promote connections: between one learner and other learners; between learners and tutors; between a learning community and its learning resources. Networked learning is an area which has great practical and theoretical importance. It is a rapidly growing area of educational practice, particularly in higher education and the corporate sector.

This volume brings together some of the best research in the field, and uses it to signpost some directions for future work. The papers in this collection represent a major contribution to our collective sense of recent progress in research on networked learning. In addition, they serve to highlight some of the largest or most important gaps in our understanding of students’ perspectives on networked learning, patterns of interaction and online discourse, and the role of contextual factors. The range of topics and methods addressed in these papers attests to the vitality of this important field of work. More significant yet is the complex understanding of the field that they combine to create. In combination, they help explain some of the key relationships between teachers’ and learners’ intentions and experiences, the affordances of text-based communications technologies and processes of informed and intelligent educational change.

Research on networked learning: An overview.- Complexity, theory and praxis: Researching collaborative learning and tutoring processes in a networked learning community.- A methodological framework for practice-based research in networked learning.- Facilitating debate in networked learning: Reflecting on online synchronous discussion in higher education.- Undergraduate students’ experiences of networked learning in UK higher education: A survey-based study.- Stimulating professional development through CMC — A case study of networked learning and initial teacher education.- Opening dimensions of variation: An empirical study of learning in a Web-based discussion.- Factors influencing students’ orientation to collaboration in networked learning.- A personal inquiry into an experience of adult learning online.- Teaching using the Web: Conceptions and approaches from a phenomenographic perspective.