A sociocultural perspective on negotiating digital identities in a community of learners

Three dimensional virtual world environments are becoming an increasingly regular feature of the education landscape, providing the opportunity for richly graphical augmented and immersive learning activities. Those who participate in these experiences must mediate through an avatar, negotiating and managing the complexities of this new variation of digital identity alongside their more familiar identity as learner and/or teacher/facilitator. This chapter describes some key moments in the construction of our own digital identities as a lecturer and a student in the Open University’s community in Second LifeTM. We explore our experiences in relation to the impact of trust and consistency from a sociocultural perspective, privileging the role of social interaction and context where meaning is socially produced and situationally interpreted, concluding that social interaction is pivotal to any meaningful identity development that takes place. The chapter ends with thoughts for future issues surrounding digital identity in relation to lifelong learning

The virtual classroom @ work

Before we can exploit new technologies to realize new ways of working we must be able to imagine innovative possibilities for learning. Organizations seeking to improve the way they work and build knowledge reach for new learning paradigms. By exploring learning and working in virtual spaces from social learning perspectives, such as situated learning, possibilities emerge. In this chapter, findings from a qualitative case study in a geographically dispersed organization are used a springboard for exploring the challenges of introducing innovative e-learning initiatives. This chapter adds to our understanding of learning and working in virtual spaces by delving into: (1) workplace practices related to virtual learning and work that facilitate and frustrate new ways of learning; and (2) notions of online community, informal learning, and blended learning which offer promise for re-conceptualizing learning within virtual work spaces. Recommendations are provided to guide the creation of fresh teaching and learning practices