Use of Community of Practice for In-Service Government Teachers in Professional Development

Abstract

This study is a descriptive analysis of information and communications technology (ICT) enabled community of practice (CoP) groups of teachers in the rural state of Assam, and in Kolkata city in the state of West Bengal, India. Fifty-four teachers completed a 4-month certificate course in ICT and education offered in blended mode by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. After a 30-h face-to-face workshop, there were 60 h in distance mode where the teachers worked on assignments, reflected through online platforms, and actively participated in an online CoP group using WhatsApp. A WhatsApp chat analysis tool analysed conversations in these two groups. This paper gives descriptive information about the WhatsApp data using attributes of the messages.