Virtual Hospital Community
Virtual Learning Communities involve a combination of physical and virtual interaction, social imagination and identity. They may be distinguished from physical communities in that virtual communities can extend the range of community and individuals can tailor their personal communities (Renninger & Shumar, 2002). Virtual communities allow learners to participate, inquire and interact to facilitate learning. The connection the learner has with virtual communities invokes imagination and identification with the site which includes autonomy, time, space, choice, opportunity, support and depth of content (Renninger & Shumar, 2002).
The virtual community I would like to create is a virtual hospital community. This virtual learning community (VLC) would be utilized by all nursing programs such as licensed practical nurses (LPN), registered nurse (RN) both associate degree (ADN) and baccalaureate (BSN). The virtual hospital would have the typical departments found in a hospital such as laboratory, radiology, dietary, nursing administration and nursing units specializing in different areas such as orthopedics, obstetrics, pediatrics, nursery, renal, medical surgical, emergency, intensive care and surgery. Each area the hospital would be a different virtual world consisting of information of that specific area. My virtual hospital would consist of four horizontal rows of squares represented as a floor and each square represents a department.
The pedagogy principle that is followed in this idea of a virtual hospital is the Knowledge Building Community Model. In this model, knowledge is collaborative construct from students and teacher (Koschmann, Hall, & Miyake, 2001). Students and instructors would collaborate on content presented in each department. There is a nondirectional flow of knowledge between instructor and students in order to develop knowledge construction.
The purpose of this virtual hospital would be to expose nursing students to a hospital world in which they could feel comfortable in asking questions, problem solve, interact with other students and instructors and get a sense of how a hospital and its departments interact. A constructivists argued that knowledge is situated, being in part a product of the activity, context and culture in which it is being developed and used (Lave, 1988). This virtual learning environment emerges the learner in a medical culture. The learner participates as an active member of the medical team in order to facilitate their learning. Students interact with each other and instructors to build upon their knowledge to increase their understanding. Empirical studies found that peer interaction provides a powerful context for supporting change in logical and spatial reasoning (Ge, 2009).
The student would enter the hospital and they would have a welcome host to direct them to the area the student wishes to go. Each department would have discussion forums over case studies involving that specific department. For example if you enter in the laboratory you would find a presentation (relevant to lab value interpretation) on a chosen topic followed by a discussion forum by the student answering questions posed by the nursing instructor. Students would then collaborate with one another to develop a better understanding of the concepts presented and applying the concepts learned through solving a problem. Nursing instructors and or graduate nursing students follow and facilitate the discussion boards. These discussion boards may be synchronous or asynchronous in nature depending on how the instructor wishes to set it up. Participants would communicate by chat, microphone or video feed in synchronous instruction or typing in asynchronous instruction. The classes would be archived for future students to view. The virtual hospital may also be utilized by numerous nursing schools to collaborate with other instructors and various levels of nursing programs.
Over time a learning organization will be established. “A Learning organization is the intersection of task-based, practice-based, and knowledge-based communities” (Riel & Polin).The virtual hospital will become a task-based learning community, in which students and/or instructors are involved in a class with a specific purpose and have a well defined beginning and end. In addition, it will also be a practice-based learning community because practice based learning takes place when teachers seek out knowledge from other teachers in order to improve their educational practices. Lastly, knowledge based learning is also observed when students and teachers leave online libraries of discussions, papers and information on topics of interest for future students to access and build upon their knowledge hopefully improving and furthering the communities knowledge base. When a learning organization is positioned in this way the organization becomes self-aware and is constantly evolving both in practice and in the knowledge based upon which it relies (Riel & Polin). This virtual hospital would accommodate its’ participants and assist in their growth professionally.
Over the past weeks our studies of virtual communities have given me insight into a world of infinite possibilities involving virtual pedagogy. It has also given me a perception of the learner to consider when forming a virtual learning environment such scaffolding, guidance from the instructor and collaboration with other students to deepen an understanding of the knowledge at hand. Knowledge is building blocks to metacognitive activity in which the learner learns to learn and applies the knowledge acquired.
I believe my virtual hospital would assist the learning of nursing students and enrich the current nursing curriculum of participating schools.


References
Ge, X. (2009, Spring). Situated Learning and Constructivist Perspective: Powerpoint Presentation.
Koschmann, T., Hall, R., & Miyake, N. (2001). CSCL2 Carrying Forward the Conversation. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in Practice: Mind, mathematics, and culture in everyday life. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Renninger, K. A., & Shumar, W. (2002). Building Virtual Communities Learning and Change in Cyberspace. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Riel, M., & Polin, L. Common Ground and Critical Differences. In S. Barab, Online Learning Communities (pp. 16-50).