| Abstract [eng] |
Virtual learning communities open up broad perspectives for the exchange of professional expertise and self-directed learning. This is especially important for teachers. While educating the younger generation, encouraging their active participation and curiosity and trying to meet their educational needs, teachers need to continue learning and sharing their knowledge with colleagues. The constant advancement of information and communication technologies is creating better conditions for the building of virtual communities, but the process of selecting technical solutions, such as environments and plugins, is becoming more complex, so administrators of virtual communities face the challenge of choosing technical solutions that would best suit the needs of teachers networking in virtual communities and would enable them to learn and share expertise with each other. The study explores the possibilities of information technologies that can be used to create a virtual community of Lithuanian teachers. First, the activities and experiences of virtual teacher communities operating in Lithuania and Europe are reviewed in relation to the technical solutions used. Then, the needs of Lithuanian teachers to create a virtual community in order to exchange expertise and learn from each other are examined. It has been identified that the most suitable solutions for the virtual community of Lithuanian teachers are virtual learning environment Moodle and content management system WordPress with a localised interface and additionally installed widgets and plug-ins enabling teachers to learn and gain experience from each other. After comparing the functional possibilities and non-functional requirements, the content management system Wordpress has been chosen for the implementation of the teachers' virtual community project. When the project of the Lithuanian teachers’ community iMokytojai www.imokytojai.lt was implemented, the evaluation of the technical solutions - environment and plugins - was performed. A positive evaluation was given to the technical solutions that enable members of the community to share professional experience and participate in the process of self-directed learning while developing their qualification; however, it became evident that there were other factors, not related to technical solutions, that influenced the members' low participation and, as a result of this, effective means of support and mutual assistance were needed. Following the findings of the evaluation, some improvements were made in the virtual environment of the Lithuanian teachers’ community iMokytojai and future perspectives were envisaged. |
