2. Metafora ed espressione emotiva in una comunità di apprendimento online

Abstract

In this paper we will discuss the role metaphors play in e-learning contexts.Metaphors are strategies to communicate emotions, to represent the self, thelearning experience and the social space for interaction. The context analyzedis a course on Psychology of E-learning offered by the University of Bari duringthe 2009-2010 academic year, attended by 40 students. The corpus of data isformed by: a) 440 notes posted online in an informal web-forum, b) 35 answersto a questionnaire administrated at the end of the course. Two category systemshave been developed through discourse and content analysis. Results show thatthe metaphors used refer to a positive path of the entire community, from an initialfear to a progressive satisfaction. The metaphors produced at the end of thecourse are classified through a few categories allows to assume a collective visionof the course and a solid virtual community.