ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the difficulty involved in defining and delimiting what a learning community actually is. In the broadest meaning of this term, a “learning communities” is a group of people with shared goals and attitudes aimed at improving the learning of all its members. The term “virtual learning community” comprises other terms with which this type of community has come to be identified: e.g., online learning community, online community, Internet community, digital community, or cybercommunity. The establishment of professional learning communities in an educational context results in improved student learning. Nevertheless, the same as every community, it requires a permanent monitoring, assessment, and analysis through which improvements can be made and its proper operation ensured for the sake of learning, both of its members and of students. Professional learning communities likewise permit to break the barriers of teachers isolated in their own classroom. Teamwork becomes the rule; teachers from various levels, stages, centers, regions, and countries are coordinated.
