Construct Teacher Community in E-Learning System 399 and adopt new approaches that will facilitate their transition to new teaching prac- tices. Recent years, there emerge lots of projects for virtual TPD communities and some of them operate successfully, for example TAPPED IN, Teachers.Net, ILF, K12.Com.Cn, EduOl.Cn, Qiusir.Com etc. With the help of virtual communities, teachers with diverse interests, skills, and backgrounds can meet and learn from one another at any time, be exposed to a variety of education reform concepts and ap- proaches, and find high-quality resources and contribute those that they find useful (Fitzpatrick, Mansfield, & Kaplan, 1996). In fact, many teachers benefit from TPD communities and Teacher Xiaoman is one of them (Junxue Wu, 2006). Virtual TPD community is supposed to be a first-rank solution for promoting the quantity and quality of utilizing e-learning system in education. How to construct it? We believe that besides a place of assist teachers’ teaching, e-leaning system could be a venue for TPD, though each single system is independent from others like an iso- lated island at the present time. In this paper, we will describe how we are weaving theoretical considerations and practical design constraints to realizing our goal of a self-sustaining online TPD community. 2 Our Practices of Organizing the Teacher Community We believe that ICT could improve teaching greatly, and therefore worked together to develop an e-learning system that could increase the efficiency of teaching and save on teachers’ time, the first version of witch named College Physics Assistant System (CPAS). 2.1 The Purpose of CPAS CPAS is not a substitute for classroom. Its aim is to track the students learning with the help of network so that the teaching plan can be adjusted to suit teachers’ needs. Simultaneously, teachers' working load can be relieved so that they have more time to help students to apply what they have learned in classroom teaching. 2.2 The Result of Putting It into Practice Making use of CPAS, teachers are able to collect and calculate a lot of data on stu- dents' learning. From these data, many problems are identified. For instance, most students have misunderstood a key concept because of the vague illustration in the textbooks. In some cases, the data show that students lack the ability of integrating Table 1. The mean and Stv.Dev table in the final test of the experimental class and the control class The experimental class The control class 1999-2000 Second semester 2000-2001 First semester 1999-2000 Second semester 2000-2001 First semester The mean 65.6 81.4 77.5 74.3 Stv.Dev 14.58 12.47 12.65 14.28 400 B. Li, C. Tao, and F. Li knowledge. From the comparison of a class in two semesters and two classes in two tests in one semester (see Table 1), it is obvious that the teaching mode with the sup- port of CPAS would get a bright future. 2.3 Share with Other Teachers At first, there was an only user who is a member of our team. As our experiences began to accumulate, he would like to offer his experiences to other teachers. Many teachers expressed their interest and some copies of CPAS were also provided to them free. A long time passed, but there was no any feedback. It was clear that the attempt of increasing the user group of CPAS had been proved to be a case of failure. There mainly exist two facts that restrict the development of CPAS. Above all, CPAS is simply designed with Microsoft Access database and ASP technology, so it can support few of teachers working together. As a teacher in another school meant to take part in the user group, he has had to get a copy of CPAS and find a people for maintenance and technique support. It is a hard thing for these college physics teachers so as to result in their quitting. In addition, an assistant role for traditional classroom teaching is the exclusive function of CPAS and the interaction and communication between teachers are not taken into account. As a teaching problem come out because a new user lacks of experiences, experienced teachers could not find it out and give him a hand to solve the problem. The new user has to struggle alone and maybe feels lonely sometimes. In 2005, the system was redesigned in total and it got a new name—Zjiao.Com. This is a Website that employs the theory of virtual communities, where teachers could share new ideas and resources with each other, even carry out collaborative teaching. Teachers can login this Website through Internet by using its domain ad- dress is www.zjiao.com, and there have been about ten teachers who draw on it to realize more referential and effective teaching at present and there will be more on next semester. In theory, the Website could hold any teacher who wants to make a change of his teaching. 3 Designing the Community Environment Zjiao.Com is a Website that could serve as an assistant tool for traditional classroom teaching and also a platform by which teachers exhibit their efforts, communicate and assist with each other in the process of teaching. Here, the design of framework that realizes the effective interaction between teachers and relevant peoples will be shared. 3.1 Teacher Communities Based on Course or Subject The word community has lost its meaning accompanying with the prevalence of terms such as “communities of learners,” “discourse communities,” and “school commu- nity.” In spite of that, it is helpful to begin by noting that community can be ap- proached as a value. As such it may well be used to bring together a number of ele- ments, for example, solidarity, commitment, mutuality and trust, which could facilitate the process of learning. Because of its advantages, community has become an obligatory appendage to many educational researches. Construct Teacher Community in E-Learning System 401 A community is constituted with a group of peoples; for instance, teacher commu- nity is a group of teachers. But a group is not equal to a community. Researchers have yet to formulate criteria that would allow them to distinguish between a community of teachers and a group of teachers sitting in a room for a meeting. In his review, Wes- theimer (1998) pointed to five common themes in theories of community, which are interdependence, interaction/participation, shared interests, concern for individual and minority views, and meaningful relationships. Zjiao.Com is a system that could support the teaching of different courses and sub- jects. In practice, the teachers teaching some course seldom communicate with the teachers teaching another. If the teachers of Zjiao.Com have constituted a large com- munity as a whole, unsorted resources and aimless interaction would undermine teaching and intercourse. Therefore, OTS is separated independently by course or subject, and the teachers teaching identical course have formed a virtual community (see Fig 1) where they could share educational resources and organize teaching activi- ties together through Internet. Fig. 1. Teachers’ personal teaching and interaction are based on a course or subject 3.2 Personal Space and Common Space The teachers drawing on the Website to support teaching come from different schools spreading in different districts. They have formed the notion of teaching on their own, Fig. 2. The common space of a course or subject is made up of the teachers’ personal spaces and other correlative resources 402 B. Li, C. Tao, and F. Li and must face the given student population. Just as in clothing, one size does not fit all, and the fact should be taken into account seriously. In the communities, every teacher as an individual is fully regarded, and owns a per- sonal space where he may edit and upload appropriate materials and organize teaching activities according to their own request. Indeed, the personal space is also a proportion of the common space comparted by a course or subject (see Fig 2). So if a teacher did more personal work, he would do more contribution to the entire communities. 3.3 Picked Resources Enriching personal space is a kind of spontaneous behavior, and it is beneficial for the construction of the communities. But the effect of personal materials is to some extent subtle, for other teachers could hardly find them when knowing nothing about them. On the other hand, the materials from each of the teachers are often used to solve some small and specific problems, and thus fragmentary. So the experienced and talented teachers should be selected out to pick out and compile the excellent contents from the teachers’ personal spaces in the communities and to import advanced educa- tional materials systematically from outside (see Fig 3). In addition, these experienced teachers not only serve as compiler, but also act as salesman who take responsibility to popularize the new teaching styles, ideas and approaches concerning with the picked resources. In fact, they act as a role of man- ager. The guide and help of the managers for peripheral participator are helpful for the development of the communities, especially in the process of enlarging the user group. Because the works of the managers are coincident with the tendency of the progress of the communities, therefore enable teachers to work together toward a common goal. Fig. 3. The experienced and talented teachers choicely take out the excellent materials from the teachers’ spaces and outside 3.4 The Mechanism of Intercourse between Teachers With referring to the design above, the course resources the teachers upload in the communities are entirely accessed to all users, as common spaces are opened. Differ- ing from course resources, teaching process is very difficult to open fully, because the privacies of teachers and students have to be seriously and soberly regarded. The respect for the privacies of users does not means that teaching process must be close to others, but acknowledges the right that teachers should be master of the data Construct Teacher Community in E-Learning System 403 Fig. 4. The teachers in a research group may share their teaching processes with each other, and anyone could be a visitor to view some teacher’s teaching process if the teacher grants it of their teaching processes. Teachers should be able to take control of whether their teaching processes are completely opened or who would be granted access. On the Website, there are three different ways that teachers choose to exchange teaching experiences with others. First of all, the teachers might open their teaching entirely, but few of the teachers would like to do like this by reason of uncertain harmful effects that possibly happen. Secondly, a research “group” could be created and the activities of its members are transparent for each other. There objectively exist small groups in the communities, members of which have interests and ideas in common and would collaborate with each other. “Group” is the right place where the members of a small group share their experiences and realize collaborative teaching (see Fig 4); for instance, a teacher might solve a problem emerging in another teacher’s class. Lastly, any user could be a visitor to trace the teaching process of some teacher if granted by him (see Fig 4). Students’ families, education researchers and teachers outside the group are likely to become the visitors. As an example, the statistical data for teaching activities are useful to the work of education researchers, and as visitors, they would be able to access these data. As a whole, the open mode of teaching process is very flexible and controllable. 4 Problems in Use The Website operates smoothly over two year. Though its development is restricted because of being short of financing and personnel for technique support, many teach- ers have joined, and more teachers express their support and incline to become a member on appropriate opportunity. In addition, there emerge many problems during the development of the user group. The most intractable one is that most teachers keep a conservative and sloth atti- tude towards the acceptance of new ideas and styles of teaching. Some teachers worry about negative effect to students’ level of accomplishment, and it maybe happens if they do not deeply understand the teaching process. In addition, teachers have to spend some time on learning how to use and catching on why to use at the beginning. Though the recommendation from one teacher to another might be a good solution, it would be a long term one. The protection of copyright is another one. Share does not mean free access to re- sources in any mode. If some one wants to use them for commercial purpose, he must get permission from the copyright holder. In China, consciousness of protecting copy- right is reinforcing because of the endeavor of the entire society. It would be believed that more and more teachers would like to share their knowledge with others accom- panying with stepped-up consciousness on the protection of copyright. . sitting in a room for a meeting. In his review, Wes- theimer (1998) pointed to five common themes in theories of community, which are interdependence, interaction/participation, shared interests,. design constraints to realizing our goal of a self-sustaining online TPD community. 2 Our Practices of Organizing the Teacher Community We believe that ICT could improve teaching greatly, and. have learned in classroom teaching. 2.2 The Result of Putting It into Practice Making use of CPAS, teachers are able to collect and calculate a lot of data on stu- dents' learning. From these