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Diversity in Learning Communities

Yesterday Eva, my colleague in room C11, successfully defended her viva (with minor corrections) and will soon be leaving us to go back to China. We will all miss her and wish her every success. In the next few weeks, new PhD students will be taking the place of departing friends.
Although I regularly work at home, when I’m in University, I value the working environment of C11, particularly in the mix (in terms of stages of PhD, experience and fields of study) provided by my colleagues. One of the key roles of formal education is to promote diversity, and thereby expose students to different perspectives. Yet as our online learning activities become increasingly informal, self-directed and distributed, is there a tendency to choose like-minded people in our digital networks and online communities of interest / practice? How can we replicate the diversity which formal educational structures often impose?

Yesterday, Eva – my colleague in room C11 – successfully passed her viva (with minor corrections) and will soon be leaving us to go back to China. We will all miss her and wish her every success. In the next few weeks, new PhD students will be taking the place of departing friends.

Although I regularly work at home, when I’m in University, I value the social and working environment of C11, particularly in the mix (in terms of stages of PhD, experience and fields of study) that is provided by my colleagues. One of the key roles of formal education is to promote diversity, and thereby expose students to different perspectives. Yet as our online learning activities become increasingly informal, self-directed and distributed, is there a tendency to choose like-minded people in our digital networks and online communities of practice/interest? How can we replicate the diversity which formal educational structures often impose?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 10:35 pm and is filed under Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Diversity in Learning Communities”

  1. frances bell Says:
    March 20th, 2010 at 3:30 pm

    [...] think about the notion of … Mail (will not be published) (required) Website. Connectivism is …Diversity in Learning Communities | PhDBlog.netYesterday Eva, my colleague in room C11, successfully defended her viva (with minor corrections) and [...]

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