Professional Development & Knowledge Management via Virtual Spaces

This chapter is divided into five sections. In the first section, new terms, such as knowledge management, professional development, and virtual spaces are introduced. The second section addresses discourses about professional development and knowledge management including e-learning-primarily because e-learning is a means to support professional development with IT and currently receiving intensive attention. For the third section, four case examples are described in order to depict possibilities and problems with professional development in virtual spaces. The fourth section discusses these cases and the implications they have for professional development in virtual spaces. Finally, we conclude the chapter by pointing out the hype surrounding knowledge management and noting that knowledge management is not just an IT system.