Developing learning profiles for web-based communities: towards an interactions-oriented model

  • Authors:

  • Philip Bonanno

  • Affiliations:

  • Programme in Educational Technology and Flexible Learning, Department of Primary Education, Faculty of Education, University of Malta, Malta

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Web Based Communities
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

An interactions-oriented model is proposed for integrating assessment of individual cognitive and affective activity with distributed cognition in an attempt to identify typologies of interactions in web-based communities along three dimensions: domain content, technological competence and social interactions. Metacognition is discussed for each dimension within a pedagogical framework involving three levels of learning: acquisition, participation and mediational approaches, each level seen as satisfying the underlying psychological needs, specifically the need for competence, relatedness, affiliation or self-actualisation, respectively. Social interactions within this pedagogical framework are organised into task- and person-oriented. Task-oriented interactions include those related to gaining competence at the cognitive and metacognitive levels. Person-oriented interactions refer to typologies of social interactions that lead to impression formation, mentalising, imitation and social metacognitive activity. The use of interaction protocols is proposed as a methodology for capturing patterns of interactions that will serve as community learning profiles. Comparing such profiles will identify "differences in patterns of interactions". The concluding discussion outlines the pedagogical implications in relation to designing and managing web-based communities.