Alienation in the learning environment: a failure of community?

Abstract

The author suggests that we need to focus on a ‘failure of communication’ rather than on a ‘failure of community’ in order to help establish online learning environments that are most likely to support engaged collaborative learning. She first briefly considers the problematic nature of the idea of learning communities based on belonging, and then shows how a focus on the learning community as a ‘communicative event’ may help us understand the issue of alienation and the complexity of the learning environment within which it might arise. She concludes by arguing that our focus may need to be more on supporting dialogue within the learning environment rather than seeking to establish belonging in a learning community.