Social e-spaces : socio-collaborative spaces within virtual worlds

Abstract

This paper presents research based on a current study validating the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process in the context of virtual spaces. A report about teens and social Media (Lenhart, Madden, Rankin Macgill, & Smith, 2007) reveals that 93% of the teens who were interviewed use the Internet as a social meeting place. This, coupled with recent internet usage statistics, establishes 'digital natives' as active participants in the design of new media as social collaborative tools. Would these social tools be effective in the e-leaming context or will they form part of a wider knowledge management framework? The purpose of this study is to outline the design of the measurement of interaction processes in the virtual spaces used fore-learning.