Online communities (OC) offer teachers a context
for mutual inspiration, collaboration, and professional
development. Yet, despite there being several studies analyzing
teachers’ motivations to participate in these communities, it is still
unclear how these motivations relate with the supporting
collaborative platforms and how they can serve as an input for
defining and prioritizing design requirements. A survey study was
conducted with the participants of an open online and a face-toface ...
Online communities (OC) offer teachers a context
for mutual inspiration, collaboration, and professional
development. Yet, despite there being several studies analyzing
teachers’ motivations to participate in these communities, it is still
unclear how these motivations relate with the supporting
collaborative platforms and how they can serve as an input for
defining and prioritizing design requirements. A survey study was
conducted with the participants of an open online and a face-toface training course in the different phases of a 'Maker'
educational activity, which were introduced to a supporting
platform for sharing, exploring, and co-creating learning designs.
Information about 170 teachers’ self-reported motivations to
participate in a collaborative environment and their perceptions
about the usefulness of the implemented features was gathered.
Findings show that participants’ main motivations are not only to
gain knowledge, but also include to have fun or to collaborate with
the community development. Regarding their perception about
the supporting platform, more than the 30% of the participants
acknowledged the usefulness of the features implemented and
identified the lack of resources and training as the main limitations
to participate. Results provide evidence of the importance of the
participants motivations to determine design requirements for a
platform to enhance collaboration within an OC of teachers.
+