Professional knowledge building in online learning community (OLC): Embracing the unknown future

The paper discusses a number of elements of the knowledge building process that were evident amongst educators in Indonesia. These educators took part in the discussion board of an online learning community, called OLC4TPD (Online Learning Community for Teacher Professional Development). OLC4TPD is an OLC-based professional learning case study developed at Edith Cowan University to investigate the feasibility of an OLC-based model to support ongoing professional training of educators in Indonesia. Starting by examining the current professional challenges faced by the teachers in their professional work, the paper talks about the potential of the OLC-based model to provide ongoing support for teachers. It examines in detail one particular aspect of the learning interactions amongst the main stakeholders of the project that is that between teachers and teacher educators. Inspired by Scardamalia’s Twelve Socio-Cognitive Determinants of Knowledge, the authors examined the discourses generated on the Discussion board during the period of 2009 – 2010 using qualitative and quantitative analysis. The paper reports the preliminary findings of the study, including the challenges and future works to be done at this project.