The Development of a Virtual Learning Environment and Resultant Pedagogy for a Mutual Understanding, Good Relations and Respect for Diversity Curriculum

This paper describes the reasons, processes and judgements behind this migration of curricula and content to a virtual learning environment and its resultant pedagogy. The first step involves the creation of a model that could be used throughout the organisation. Based on Allport’s ‘Contact Theory’ and the ‘Social Constructivism’ of Vygotsky and Bruner the model contained a ‘Central Core’. This core was filled with programme specific content and was obviously different for each programme or project. The core consisted of programme relevant activities, learning tasks and evaluation techniques designed for different learning approaches (visual, auditory and kinaesthetic). The model then saw the core as having ‘docking ports’ where the content free social software plugged in and indeed plugged out when required. This was the communication, collaborative and social software (e.g. Chat, discussion, Wikis and Virtual Worlds such as Second Life).

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