Sociological study of prospects of online education through netnography of Internet communities

http://dx.doi.org/10.20339/AM.03-16.009

N.M. Bogdanova is cand. of Sociology, Senior lecturer

e-mail: bo-na-mi@yandex.ru

D.S. Gorokhov is student

e-mail: actn8d@gmail.com

Samara State Aerospace University

Presented are results of analysis of advantages and limitations of online education at platforms such as MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses), it’s technical and procedural opportunities, specifics of communication between teacher and students, and also between students themselves. Examined are popular multi-disciplinary online platform, reviewing as virtual communities, presenting themselves as specific form “symbolic locality”. Ontological problem of the research is perception of online education as copy of offline education, as well as stereotype notions about the nature of learning in virtual environment. As research methods are being used netnography and autonetnography of virtual communities. The article ends with description of identified tendencies of online education and specificity of it’s connection with traditional educational practice, and also problematization of influence of online environment on the institute of education as a whole.

Key words: online education, netnography, autonetnography, massive open online courses, virtual communities.

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