Criteria for evaluating the social capital of the NWU distance learning community
Abstract
Discussions of dialogue have been at the heart of Distance Learning (well known
in the theories of Borge, Holmberg and Moore). This theoretical article focuses on
formulating criteria for evaluating the social capital of a particular Distance Learning
community, at the North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus (NWU), and
attempts to put forward specific thoughts regarding the importance of dialogue as
a key pedagogical method within the Distance Learning setting at NWU through
which social capital is being shaped. A number of educationalists recently reexamined
the position that dialogue occupies in the Distance Learning setting.
Distance Learning is to facilitate through a distance; these students and lecturers
are divided physically in occasion and space. Consequently, Distance Learning
students and lecturers lack the communal physical attendance that is imperative
for communication. In Distance Learning, many communication pathways are
imprecise. This article specifically deals with the essentially dialogic nature of the
educational dialogue in Distance Learning, and the need to establish criteria for
evaluating the social capital of a particular Distance Learning community.
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