Designing and managing virtual learning communities

There is a tendency to view education on the Internet as simply a more efficient way to access information and to communicate, but the Internet is much more than just another tool. The Internet has the potential to create communities where students participate in robust discourse and rituals of communication, establish their identities, and traverse community boundaries. We believe we need to design on-line courses with sound pedagogical frameworks and with a sense of promoting community values of diversity, connectedness, and civic responsibility. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to describe a framework that we use to design virtual learning communities. We explain community activities to consider, describe how we used our framework for designing three classes, and pose issues that arose when using this framework. We hope our thoughts will direct discussion toward the creation of innovative learning communities.