What is meant by the notion ‘virtual learning environment’ (VLE)? Flavin and Bhandari (2021: 165) state VLEs, “otherwise known as learning management systems [LMSs], are established technologies that have been supporting learning and teaching in higher education for over 20 years”. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, distance learning has increasingly become the norm, making it timely to reflect on the VLE they say. Flavin and Bhandari (2021: 164) analysed and coded 99 peer reviewed academic journal articles, identified and classified the research method and focus of each, as well as the specific brand of VLE. They found most output “to be quantitative, to focus on students and on the micro level of learning and teaching, to not have a clear theoretical focus, to not specify which brand of VLE is used, and to be produced in affluent countries”. In the late-1990s VLE systems began to spread and swiftly became a status symbol of innovation, enabling anytime, anywhere access. VLEs held the potential to transform teaching and learning, enabling both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration, regardless of spatial and temporal boundaries. However, because of the initial limited use in practice to mainly store content, metaphors for VLEs included ‘security blanket’, ‘crutch’, and ‘electronic filing cabinet’.
VLEs, such as ClassFronter (a Norwegian system), WebCT and Blackboard (which merged, trading in the latter name), Moodle (head office is in Australia) “are customarily produced in affluent countries [and] exported worldwide”. Technologies are expensive and use of digital technology in higher education, a multi-billion dollar business. The adoption of “commercial marketplace norms”, may not only “undermine core functions and values of education”, but the “design features of VLEs [also] prompt culturally specific forms of learning”, say Flavin and Bhandari (2021: 166). The influence of western countries and universities abroad—a group of universities in the United States, for example, developed Sakai—further dominate curricula and methodologies and hold the danger that VLEs may politically and technically “reproducing geopolitical structures and imbalances of wealth and power”, say Flavin and Bhandari (2021: 167). They therefore (p. 176) caution about ‘digital colonialism’ and ‘colonial pedagogy’ through dominance by affluent countries.
Flavin and Bhandari (2021: 174) mention the scarcity of theoretical lenses used in articles analysed, and mention that very few articles declared any explicit. The image below reflect four, of which the most popular theoretical lens the ‘Technology Adoption Model’, which is not an educational lens, but “not surprising, as this model analyses how people engage with technologies and the criteria they apply to evaluate technologies’ usefulness” (p. 175). Another theoretical lens is the ‘Community of Practice Theory’, which “is suitable for analysing VLEs from a social perspective and monitoring learners’ progress in learning communities, as the theory focuses on how learning communities evolve and on how people establish effective identities in communities of practice”. A third theoretical lens is ‘Activity Theory’, “is more suitable for analysing technical and social aspects of technologies and how they interact, by anatomizing systems into interactive nodes”. The fourth mentioned is ‘Grounded Theory’, which pertains to analysis of data collected.
Flavin, M. & Bhandari, A. (2021). What We Talk About When We Talk About Virtual Learning Environments. International Review of Research in Open & Distance Learning, 22 (4), 164-193. DOI: https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v23i1.5806
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