Chapter 13: Exploring Elements For Creating an Online Community of Learners Within a Distance Education Course at the University of Southern Queensland

The notion of community underpins much of the recent and contemporary discourse framing social theory (Moriarty, Danaher, & Danaher, 2005). It seems that, as the certitudes of modernity have given way to the uncertainties of postmodernity, a focus on community holds some promise of establishing shared meaning-making and commonality of purpose, albeit within a carefully circumscribed context. This focus has certainly framed such concepts as imagined communities (Anderson, 1983), phantom communities (Durham, 1998), relational communities (Smith, 2005), and symbolic communities (Cohen, 1985).

Within education, community has been deployed as both a theory and a set of strategies to strengthen the bonds between learners and educators and among learners. This has been the case, for example, with the notions of communities of practice (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002) and of cooperative communities (Johnson & Johnson, 1998). This approach is generally aligned with a socially constructivist conception of learning (Vygotsky, 1978), highlighting communication, dialogue, and interaction (Anderson, 2003) as crucial vehicles for the development of understanding.