Learning communities for children

I attended last month the International Conference of Educational Technology 2008 (ICOET2008) and I was very interested in a lecture titled Designing Learning Experiences in an Age of Options delivered by Dr. Kyle Peck. He talked about creating online learning communities (OLC) which means interactions among people in an online environment and learn through group activity to define problems affecting them, to decide upon a solution, and to act to achieve the solution.

I think it is easier for educators to design learning communities for teenagers and matured students; but what about designing such communities for children?

I asked Dr. Kyle Peck this question and he said that it is a good idea to build OLC for children and in US children in each class have their own learning community but in a local network.

From my point of view, I think it is difficult to build OLC for children between (6-10 years) because they are not mature enough do not have the skills and the responsibility that help them to participate actively in such communities. But, we can train children above 10 years on how to interact in these communities and how to improve their skills to sustain in an OLC.

Waiting for my classmates’ comments.

May Allah give you more knowledge.

Tamadher AL-Za’abi