Community and Learning

Abstract

The power of communication systems to connect people to each other and to diverse sources of information is seen as enhancing learning in quite profound ways. From a social justice perspective, however, disparities between and within nations in the distribution of educational resources and opportunities appear to be amplified by the new technologies rather than reduced, so accessibility remains a pressing concern. The vision of a global learning community, nonetheless, is a seductive one – a fusion of desire for security and growth, for community and learning – and it has been readily exploited by media and telecommunication companies in their advertisements. However, web-mediated learning and the virtual communities created across time and space, are also regarded with suspicion, as ‘unruly’, ‘out of control’ and ‘dangerous’ because they enable instant access to information from diverse sources across the globe, information that may be unreliable, malevolent, myopic or misleading. Professor Renshaw begins this lecture, then, with these double-sided reflections on the beguiling words – learning and community - and suggest that as educators we need to explicate in words and in practice, a vision of community that is worth learning towards.