eTutoring

Online learners discuss their learning and learning resources in online learning communities also referred to as virtual learning communities: groups of learners who discuss their learning using electronic technologies, often the Internet. Technologies that enable online communication within those communities consist of tools/sub-environments such as the following:

• Discussion Forum: a place in a learning management system where learners discuss the content at their convenient time. A discussion forum is often convenient for not more than 30 learners per tutor. Otherwise, when more than 30 learners actively post their contribution in the follow, it becomes overwhelming on the part of instructors or tutors. 
  
  
• Live chat channel (s): place (s) in a learning management system or other software where learners meet and discuss the content at the same time using short written messages.
  
  
• Facebook group: a group created on Facebook (one of the social media) that may also be used to discuss the learning content.
  
  

• Twitter hashtags: a handle created on Twitter (another type of social media) use to share information on a specific topic. A hashtag (e.g. #oeglobal18) enables the user to see all other people who use it to discuss the topic, regardless of their location. Hashtags have been used in online learning (especially Massive Open Online Courses: MOOCs) to reach hundreds of learners discussing the learning content. etc.

• WhatsApp: thought not synchronized in the learning management system (Moodle, for instance), WhatsApp communities are helpful in online learning, especially in limited Internet access place. A good example of a WhatsApp learning community creation occurred in our Digital Literacy for Online Learning course in which participants who engaged in the course during its pilot phase created a WhatsApp group to extended their discussion on the course content.  
  

Some online learning communities may be open (to anyone who want to participate). Those communities include some Facebook group and Twitter hashtag-mediated communities.