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The Presentational use of the internet includes perusing enhanced lectures or using the World Wide
Web as library enhancement or as research resource. Presentational uses of technology reflect traditional
pedagogies in which the teacher lectures, students listen; the teacher defines the research task, students report
their findings. The nature of the PIG as a continuum becomes increasingly clear when a student asks an
instructor posting lectures on the Internet to enchance a lecture or to clarify a point--pushing the presentation
up the PIG toward Interaction.
Interactive use of the web includes prepared web-based modules that branch from site to site or within
a site. The interactivity increases with the complexity of the branching, from Skinnerian right-wrong modules
to more complicated Crowderian branches. At this point in time, most Interactive uses of the web extend only
marginally away from the Presentational end of the continuum and are comprised primarily of text material or
linked texts. As we move further up the PIG continuum, Interactive use also includes asynchronous threaded
discussions on the web that may exhibit increased collaboration. Higher yet on the Interactive continuum,
Internet participants interact, with not just text but with each other. Very soon after this type of Interaction,
participants naturaly begin to Generate ideas that go beyond the contents and intents of the original hypertexts.
The Generative use of the Internet describes pedagogies that put multimedia web tools into the hands
of students. This allows and encourages them to inquire and generate based on their interaction with the
hypertexts and each other. Most of these approaches at WSU require students to collaborate with each other
and with faculty to create web pages or multimedia modules. A number of independent studies at WSU have
begun to establish that, in general, as pedagogies move up the PIG continuum into the Generative realm,
exciting things happen. Students participate more, encounter more diverse points of view, are more likely to
seek and find expert as well as peer resources, conceptualize material more completely, and, essentially, learn
more. At the same time, the more pedagogies move toward the Generative, the more complicated they become,
the more a change in tradtion becomes necessary. Generative pedagogies challenge traditional educational
systems, institutions and organizations.
This necessitates a new virtual leadership strategy. We understand the overall vSMF leadership
strategy as an example of the temporary systems model (Miles, 1964, Goodman & Goodman, 1976) --students,
adults and vSMF staff and administrators came together in ad hoc ways to solve specific problems
related to participation in the vSMF. Many of these relations arose spontaneously among participants as they
individually worked on technical or scientific problems.
An important dimension of the leadership was that it could not be coercive. Participants could leave
the vSMF site at the click of a browser. The administrators adapted techniques known from other leadership
settings, being visible in the hallways (web presence), leading by example (model posters), and talking up the
process (listserv). This leadership mimics Senge’s (1996) Networker leader who is followed because of their
compelling vision. In an environment of egalitarian knowledge distribution; where few sanctions or rewards
exist aside from the gratification of participating in interesting, rewarding and enriching experiences; this
combination of techniques becomes a model virtual leadership strategy.
Internet's role in supporting DLCs, its spectrum of uses, and the new styles of leadership is the basis
for this paper. Distributed Learning Communities (DLCs) will play an predominant role in the future of
education based on Generative pedagogies and the Internet. Understanding how to build and nurture DLCs
with new virtual leadership strategies will be critical to administering successful educational environments and
reforming educational institutions.
References
Butler, D. (1996), Research and the Internet connection. Nature 380(6573) 377-78.
Miles, M. B. (1964). Innovations in education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Goodman, R., & Goodman, L. (1976). Some management issues in temporary systems: A study of
professional development and manpower--The theater case. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(3), 494-
501.
Senge, P. (1996). Leading learning organizations: The bold, the powerful and the invisible. In the leader of
the Future, F. Hesselbein, M. Goldsmite, and R. Beckhard. San Franscisco: Jossey Bass.