How Does a Virtual Learning Environment Support and Enhance Community Building in Initial Teacher Education Cohorts

In 2012-2013, a new virtual learning environment called Pepper was introduced to six face-to-face student cohort groups in an Initial Teacher Education (ITE) program at a large Ontario university. Cohort instructors reported a high level of student engagement and felt that Pepper was more successful at supporting community than the previous commercial course management system. These findings inspired the current case study. What specific features and functionality of Pepper seemed to promote a deeper sense of community within these cohort-based environments, and why?;The research questions were answered by collecting data from a variety of sources. First, in order to comprehend student/instructor online behaviours, automatically generated Pepper log files were examined. A survey was conducted to gather student opinions about different aspects of Pepper's functionality. Finally, students, instructors and the developer were interviewed to gather in-depth perspectives and experiences.;Data analysis revealed that, contrary to expectations, Pepper was not used to conduct community-wide discussions, since most conversations took place daily during face-to-face classes. Instead, Pepper's perceived value was associated with its ease of use and its ability to i) share documents; ii) send and receive private messages; iii) make announcements; and iv) integrate calendars. Thus it complemented face-to-face community activities rather than replacing them. The research documented unconventional and innovative instructor uses of Pepper, including the hosting of multiple cohort groups in one shared environment and the use of a shared folder feature to foster overlapping cohort memberships. These behaviours mark a change from other course management systems where courses exist in separate online silos with no opportunity for interaction or collaboration.;Logfiles revealed that private messaging was used more often than public postings, despite the environment's open format, raising questions about the possible importance of private discourse in communities. Finally, there was a perceived need for Pepper to be more accessible through smartphones to better support students' moment-by-moment need for information between and during classes.;Recommendations are made relating to instructor and student training, full open access courses, additional tools and graphic representations. The concept of participatory presence is introduced as a new online cohort community framework.