38 International Journal of Knowledge Management, 10(4), 38-49, October-December 2014

The Management and

Construction of Knowledge
as an Innovation Strategy for
Collaborative Learning Through
the Use and Creation of Learning
Communities and Networks
Marlin Alicia Aaron Gonzalvez, Universidad de la Guajira, Riohacha, Colombia
Oscar Alonso Castañeda Toledo, Universidad de la Guajira, Riohacha, Colombia
Ana Rosa Ibarra Rodriguez, Universidad de la Guajira, Riohacha, Colombia

ABSTRACT
This article aims to approach the importance of a pedagogical strategy for collaborative learning through the
use and construction of networks and learning communities directly connected to knowledge management.
From my experience within the Networks, Learning Communities and Knowledge Management Seminar in
the Masters of Education in the Information Technology and Communication Department at the University
of La Guajira, the way members of a society communicate and interact by identifying a qualitative transition
between the information society and the knowledge society, in which knowledge management in cyberspace
has broken deeply rooted paradigms in the education system through the construction of effective teaching
strategies that contribute to the development of processes in different parts of the world, contributes to the
creation of virtual learning environments and the implementation of pedagogical strategies such as networking
and learning communities that reinforce the collective work and resources that the web 2.0 offers in terms of
knowledge management and the development of higher thinking abilities. Also, the teacher changed roles and
acted as another member of the group, which provoked an interesting flow of communication.

Keywords: Autonomous Learning, Collaborative Learning, Communities, Knowledge, Learning,

Management, Networks, Strategies

DOI: 10.4018/ijkm.2014100103

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 International Journal of Knowledge Management, 10(4), 38-49, October-December 2014 39
INTRODUCTION
In education today, an innovative curriculum
includes systematic processes that point towards
the generation, construction and management
of knowledge from a ubiquitous perspective
and the interchange of tacit knowledge between
two entities is more evident in the growing
development of practice and/or knowledge
communities and networks, where there is the
possibility of accessing all the information found
in the cloud. This can be viewed, classified,
organized, debated and adapted according to
the needs of the individual, allowing interaction
that proceeds from diverse educational settings
to “focus groups” made up of interrelated and
connected knowledge. The purpose of this
article is to share an edifying network learning
experience where the fascinating magic real-
ism expressed by Fidalgo (2010) and adapted
by Castañeda (2012) is transcended, in which
deciphering, like an enigmatic treasure map,
the point of equilibrium in which “the pirates”
(emerging technologies) adopted characteristics
of “corsairs” (education technologies) as part of
the embattled “strategy” (resources to produce
knowledge management) which is used with
all bravery to defend, tooth and nail, the hand
of the fragile (but at the same time, strong!)
“maiden” (the teaching-learning process) as
the sure route to achieving the valued “trea-
sure” (information-knowledge management),
considered as the principal objective of this
passionate adventure.
This paper presents the way that is filled
inside the formative process, which is, prospers
from the actions and roles that actors involved:
teachers, students, and coordinator of the Mas-
ter. In the section two focuses the reader on the
institutional context designed by the Coordina-
tion of the Master from the learning objective on
that develops the formative process; in chapter
three presents the description of the method-
ological strategy that was available to guide the
reader step by step on the roles and functions
that teachers and students fulfill attending
to the philosophy delivered by coordinating
the Master, the way like forms the innovation
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from the management of knowledge and the
communities of practice and of learning that
are made possible. One presents in the clause
four the results of the process and the conclu-
sions that depart from the learned lessons are
included in the clause 5
CONTEXT
The pedagogic strategy referred to occurred
during the Networks, Learning Communities
and Knowledge Management Seminary in the
Masters of Education of the ICT at the University
of La Guajira, Colombia, and was a classroom
experience with a high component of virtual
work, not only during classroom sessions, but
also as a result of the seminars in the curricu-
lum. Given the condition that all the Master’s
students should be working teachers and the
generation of knowledge is attributed to increas-
ingly fewer in-class experiences and conceived
for more cyber-space activity, interchanges of
process production among individuals that may
be far from each other and connected only by
the now-famous social networks, as indicated
by Burbules and Callister (2001);
…from the most unlikely corners of the globe,
virtual communities as vital and attractive as
life are formed, since these communities are
central and closely linked to areas of interest and
concern that are often essential to the sense of
individuality and wellbeing of the participants.
This allows for decision-making and agreed
debate with others in relation to opinion and
contribution, which are initial elements for
cultivating knowledge and its later collective
management.
That each individual is related to another
regardless of time and space is increasingly
evident in the constant social connectivism
proposed by Siemens (2005), which means
that the social web is that space where such a
virtual community constitutes a work unit that
makes effective use of knowledge management
systems and web 2.0 tools.
40 International Journal of Knowledge Management, 10(4), 38-49, October-December 2014
These are not only limited in the exchange
of information, but contribute to the construc-
tion of a more semantic web in which that
flow of information has meaning from the tacit
(individual) to the explicit (collective), and new
processes for facilitating mechanisms for col-
laborative interaction among members of that
community are generated. As proposed by De
Kerckhove (1999),
…millions of human minds are perpetually
working on anything and everything with a
potential relevance for anyone and everyone:
a new cognitive status”. Therefore it is in-
creasingly more evident and relevant to relate,
develop and use management systems for this
knowledge construction, which is in constant
growth.
Thus, since the Networks, Learning Com-
munities and Knowledge Management seminar,
the conception of the Nonaka and Takeuchi
(1995) knowledge spiral was sought that would
build on tacit (individual) knowledge to arrive
at explicit (collective) knowledge through the
construction and meaningful use of networks
and communities on the social web. This would
identify sociocultural contexts within these
individual and collective relationships, thus
achieving micro-societies of knowledge.
The development of innovative strate-
gies in the present society of information and
knowledge in which we find ourselves, with the
tendency to appropriate not only technology,
but the cognitive development of individuals
and groups that have a revitalizing effect on the
management, exchange and transformation of
information processes towards the construc-
tion of knowledge in different social contexts
becomes increasingly relevant and necessary,
promoting learning habits using the web, where
according to Goodyear (2000),
Information technology and communication are
used to promote links: links between students,
between students and tutors, and between the
educational community and learning resources.
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From the graduate program in which the
Networks seminar was included, learning and
management communities were defined as
the pedagogical strategy of the production of
collaborative learning where it is projected
that the students go from the traditional use of
the web and the production of tacit individual
knowledge in which obtaining and distribut-
ing information is simplified, to the use where
the components and competence of social and
collective learning based on networks and com-
munities that build content, knowledge and the
collective interchange/sharing produce a rich
explicit knowledge.
The graduate program, in its search to
achieve established competences, ensures that
the graduate develops not only strategies and
skills, but also ideal visions that guarantee the
quality of sociocultural and socio-educational
relationships in today’s society.
DESCRIPTION
In developing a collaborative learning strategy,
the development of new methods were consid-
ered to encourage the personal development of
each individual, based on tacit knowledge and
building explicit knowledge, to determine the
basis of the generation of knowledge, which is
made all the more evident in the distribution
and saturation of information by means of the
use of social networks, making the learning
process possible or difficult. Diverse pedagogi-
cal strategies are necessary to meet those ends,
which allow the educator to generate levels of
interaction, such as those proposed by Salinas
J (2000), where the level of intercommunica-
tion and production can be classified in four
categories: (individual work, person-to-person
work, diffusion of knowledge, and interchange),
to the extent that when speaking about learning,
where unidirectional communication, homog-
enous training and pre-established criteria are
things of the past, we now focus on “learning
to learn”, which we could call “Self-learning”.
Keeping in mind the purpose of the Net-
works, Learning Communities and Knowledge
 International Journal of Knowledge Management, 10(4), 38-49, October-December 2014 41
Management Seminar, the dynamics of the
educator, its purpose was made manifest by the
Group Coordinator of the Masters of Pedagogy
of the ICT: the spirit of the Master’s program
was that the students learn, as individuals, to be
effective members of the learning community
and maximize their comprehension of the impor-
tance of teaching and knowledge management.
The educator brings to the Master’s the
pedagogic strategy that would be used in various
virtual scenarios born of the social networks
and winding up on a knowledge management
platform. The intention of the first was to lodge
information that would be used to learn about
technology that affects human beings, and in-
formation searches, with the students organized
into work groups. That way one of the purposes
of the Seminary would be fulfilled.
NETWORKS AND
COMMUNITIES
Each group consisted of a community and was
made up of a community of communities. Ad-
ditionally, the educator’s planning didn’t end
there, since he should make learning possible for
the intrinsic role of the student, in their condition
as educators. For that purpose, an articulating
element should be generated, and also a bridge
allowing the constitution of a learning commu-
nity should be observed, which should also work
to make up the practice community. All of the
above, supported by information management
that allows communities to present work to
other communities, that is, the community of
communities, what the educator was planning,
presenting to the students an element that would
become an enhancer of the practice community
and that during the information search process
of each collective, this would be visible for
all the others and could be used if considered
valuable for the communities.
That’s how the experience that initiates with
the forming of work groups (G1 to G6) in social
network 1, Facebook, (see Figure 1), forming
the “Inter-work and Self-work” groups, whose
purpose is to identify in the cloud all possible
information associated with the subject, under
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the condition common among all the groups,
technology and not education, but technology
with the sense of contributing or affecting the
environment or human beings.
The large amount of information in each
one of the groups due to searches done by each
one of the participants on a particular subject,
although interrelated with other groups, on
technology and its impact in diverse subjects,
allowed the development of a series of skills
and strategies called “Interpersonal and Intra-
personal” with the objective of obtaining and
building knowledge in each group subject’s set-
ting. Here the role of the educator was changed,
since in addition to knowing part or all of the
subjects and the tools used in a work setting,
he should develop a strategy of “Person-to-
Person work” with the students. Preparation
before the activities should be done, in some
cases selectively to control interactions, to tutor,
motivate and check the material and develop a
continuous reflexive evaluation of the process,
which provided the students with a challenge
and allowed the development of the following
strategy, “Spread of Knowledge”, where the
educator becomes a member of the group, and
in the role of student, adding information into
the virtual space in the social network that the
other members should search for and add to.
This role of dynamic student was one that the
educator did not abandon, and started in the
eyes of the students a permanent companion
in daily activities on the social network, so
that each time data or information was added
to the space, what the educator had added was
also there.
The information started with the initial
information from one individual and this grew
with information generated by other members
of the group, and all the information would be
available on the social network Facebook, be-
coming a large primary deposit of information
for each one of the formed groups, which also
had another intention, that this documentation
should be shared with the other groups (see
Figure 2).
A success factor of this process was at-
taining the greatest amount of information
42 International Journal of Knowledge Management, 10(4), 38-49, October-December 2014

Figure 1. Seminar planning using virtual scenarios

possible in all its formats; photography, video,
documents, and images as well as the special
characteristic of the educator that also added
to the group information, which produced the
effect of continuous work from the analytical
perspective of the students, since it was always
necessary to get more to relate and adapt (see
Figure 3).
A community of learning communities
was built with an established subject and all
the pertinent information, up to date, current,
historical, in several formats, accumulated and
analyzed by the groups of students in order to
identify what was appropriate.
Each group of students developed a base
of knowledge on the assigned subject.
The use of a social network like Facebook
to shape interrelated learning communities al-
lowed the Learning Network to be developed in
order to agglomerate, connect, relate and adapt
the majority of the information and knowledge
added and built upon in each learning com-
munity. That was how a new Social Network
– social network 2 - known as “Society and
Technology” began to be used where all the
students were just one community of commu-
nities. This network enabled a classification
process in two levels, the first one given by

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 International Journal of Knowledge Management, 10(4), 38-49, October-December 2014 43
Figure 2. From tacit to collective knowledge in learning communities
each learning community in Facebook and the
second classification level was given by the
entire group of students on the information in
the new social network, which guaranteed an
auto filtered structure of pertinent, relevant,
adapted and inter-related information.
This exercise managed to finalize the con-
version process of knowledge among the stu-
dents, beginning with informal tacit knowledge
from each student on a particular subject and
transforming into explicit informal knowledge
structured in each learning community, created
and managed on Facebook by starting a new
social network where there were no longer any
groups, since there was just one space for all, and
the tacit knowledge was more formal this time,
to again become explicit formal knowledge, as
shown in figure 4.
The use of a social network as Facebook
made possible the development of an own and
participative learning in students with social
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characteristics; also, it allow them to autothink
about their process opposite to impact in the
society, which does that it should kick to the
university by means of these inclusive learnings
that it giving steps towards a university 2.0, As
Berlanga, García Peñalvo and Sloep (2010), ex-
press it on “Towards eLearning 2.0 University”.
Interactive Learning Environments.
The development of this work method not
only influenced the cognitive construct of the
student, but also that of the educator, whose
role was established as facilitator/adviser and
who went not from student to teacher, but from
teacher to student. Allowing the teaching-learn-
ing process, related to the use and knowledge
of Networks and learning communities, to be
molded by the work (collective, developmental
and comprehensive within ICT competences)
that support the incorporation of work method-
ologies into the teaching practice, as well as the
advantages and disadvantages of using social
44 International Journal of Knowledge Management, 10(4), 38-49, October-December 2014

Figure 3. Knowledge construction framework generated by communities and learning network

networks for educational means that involve
collaborative processes between partners.
Groups in which all could see what the other
groups did substantially favored the sharing
of information, generating debate forums in
which individual participation was conceptu-
ally documented and supported, facilitating a
constructive-connective model.
However, a new challenge became ap-
parent, that of how to search for information
and knowledge generated within the learning
communities and learning networks. The in-
formation accumulated in the Learning Com-
munity and the Learning Network should be
accumulated in just one repository, organized,
classified, made visible and managed so that it
can be easily interrelated to provide a margin
of operability and adaptability, as was done
in a virtual knowledge management platform
known as CSORA Fidalgo and Ponce (2011),
in which it was possible to again organize the
students in communities, this time as practice
groups within a practice network, keeping in
mind that the management of documents and
conclusions should have a sense and purpose
for those that could be possible users of it.
The use of this platform guaranteed that
the process of knowledge conversion, was
sustainable and therefore an evolution in the
knowledge spiral that extends infinitely.
Knowledge management, as is seen in
Figure 5, with organized access, ease of search

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 International Journal of Knowledge Management, 10(4), 38-49, October-December 2014 45
Figure 4. Knowledge conversion model
and the possibility of being built upon with a
new emerging value.
Due to the above, the process of establish-
ing learning networks and communities and
knowledge management created allowed the
development of a cooperative learning group,
established within a structured pedagogic
strategy, key, in the Theory knowledge estab-
lished by Lewis, R (2002) where it is said that
” … knowledge comes from information … ”
and likewise it indicates that ” … knowledge
derives from the aptitude to apply information
to solve a certain problem and that intelligence
reveals the suitable selection of knowledge that
is invoked in order to solve a certain task …”
RESULTS
From the academic discussion that was propiti-
ated into the established groups it was possible
to demonstrate that a social network can turn
into a learning network when the generation
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and construction of knowledge is made possible
through the participation and interaction of all
the members who integrate it, using collabora-
tive work as a pedagogic strategy.
Additionally, an authentic practice commu-
nity was built due to the enormous possibilities
of communication and information that were
established, the personal and professional en-
richment that happened to each member, who
analyzed, learned, discussed and drew conclu-
sions about the pedagogic practice and his role
as advisers in the formation processes.
It was seen that the permanent presence
of the educator became a key factor in the
development of the process. The new role as
an active student, continuously active, allowed
the students to understand the complexity of
the dynamic, the need to obtain information
in a permanent way and the importance of
transcending the organization as a group to an
organization of collective work, where there
was systematic feedback. This last point is
46 International Journal of Knowledge Management, 10(4), 38-49, October-December 2014
Figure 5. Knowledge management as a pillar of knowledge conversion
considered as an important achievement in the
process, as it is associated with the expected
results of the seminary. With this methodology
the teacher-student relationship is transcended;
the hierarchies and that vertical line are gone,
since the educator, instead of being the author-
ity on knowledge, became a facilitator and a
cultural mediator.
The comprehension of knowledge manage-
ment, more than a conceptual interpretation,
was one of the most cited examples among the
students when evaluating the seminary. The
use of social networks to store information in a
temporary fashion, which was then organized,
added to, classified and indexed in the CSORA
Platform became a key factor in this.
CONCLUSION
The maximum benefit of this seminary was
in seeing the direct way in which the transi-
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tion of a learning community into a practice
community and then to a learning network, as
well as the truly cooperative work done among
the participating members, where all were in
equal conditions in regards to the production of
knowledge and documentation to be collected
and organized in the learning and practice
community.
The expectations of the educator-tutor as
far as the usefulness and quantity of information
on the assigned subject became the motiva-
tion of the group that became an assignment
of activities in which all were responsible
for gathering information. When building the
practice community, which was preceded by the
learning community, this condition and expecta-
tion changed and became a tacit mechanism to
organize the work of each group and demon-
strate efficiency in information management
by organizing, classifying and uploading it to
the virtual CSORA platform, keeping in mind
 International Journal of Knowledge Management, 10(4), 38-49, October-December 2014 47
Figure 6. Pedagogic strategy
what could be the conception and outlook of
those benefiting from it.
The process of managing knowledge can
be simple or complex due to the previous con-
siderations; it is very simple when enough trust-
worthy information is available, and becomes
difficult and complex when the information
is not complete, insufficiently organized or is
not available and when tacit knowledge is not
available.
Knowledge management demands the
structuring of information and clarity on what
is to be managed, requiring, additionally, a
technological architecture that is conceived as
a space that facilitates the acquiring of infor-
mation and its later mobility so that it can be
classified, catalogued, categorized and made
visible to be shared. Although the technological
architecture of Knowledge Management is not
the most important, it is the facilitator when
it becomes the mediation for organizing and
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making information visible that, in the process,
becomes knowledge.
The pedagogic strategy that allowed the
work of each student and each group of students
to be recognized was validated, which meant
that the teacher had an important area to evalu-
ate the performance of each one and contribute
positively to values such as responsibility, per-
formance, and leadership, elements that favored
the achievement of the learning objectives.
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 International Journal of Knowledge Management, 10(4), 38-49, October-December 2014 49

Marlin Alicia Aaron Gonzalvez: Systems Engineer. Virtual University Education Specialist. Specialist in
Management. Master in Information Technology and Communication. Master in Education in ICT. Full
professor at the University of La Guajira attached to the Faculty of Engineering. Research Line Use and
appropriation of ICT in education. Experience in developing projects with pedagogical sense to incorporate
ICT in primary, secondary and higher education. He has served as Director of Research Center, Graduate
Coordinator and Director of Computer Center of the University of La Guajira in Colombia and as regional
manager Telecommunications Company in La Guajira.
Oscar Castañeda Toledo: Industrial Engineer, Master in Management and Production in E-learning Mas-
ter in Media Engineering Education; Experience Consultant in implementation and integration of ICT in
education; as Area Manager pedagogy private enterprise; Coordinator of appropriation of ICT programs
digital city models Experience in projects of classroom 1-1, whiteboards; Assistant university research
projects. Experience and knowledge in implementation and incorporation of teacher training programs in
ICT use; Coordination, management and monitoring of learning networks and teamwork mediated by ICT;
Project management training of teachers and administrative handling and Educational innovation projects
at university level. Now, Education Consultant Latin America at SMART Technologies.
Ana Rosa Ibarra Rodríguez: Professional in modern languages. Master in Pedagogy of communication
and information technology, graduated from La Guajira University (Riohacha, La Guajira, Colombia);
aspiring Doctor in human sciences from Zulia University, Venezuela. English and Spanish teacher at Centro
de Integración Popular School and English teacher at La Guajira University. En Riohacha, La Guajira,
Colombia. Participated as speaker in Virtual Educa Colombia 2013 (Medellin, Colombia) and Cinaic 2013
(Madrid, España). Written some articles for Entorno magazines related to teaching and learning processes.

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