Dialogues Online: Crossing a Threshold

In this chapter I continue to explore the relationship between technology and teaching reflective dialogue, this time with a focus on virtual learning environments for adult students. I argue that many of the same pedagogic design principles for opening, deepening and widening dialogic spaces developed in primary schools still apply in this new context but that they need to be implemented differently. Here I look at how the ‘chronotopes’ of different interfaces impact on induction into dialogues and at how aspects of the design of online environments can support the formation of online reflective learning communities. My examples are mostly explorations of software scaffolding for induction into dialogue.