Online community of inquiry It is a theoretical framework that focuses on the elements of an educational experience that facilities creation of communities of learning actively and collaboratively engaged in exploring, creating meaning, and confirming understanding, it is a framework that recognizes the importance of an environment that shapes educational experiences. Online community of enquiry is best created virtual learning environment in order to support discourse among teacher and learners, their critical enquiry as well as their critical thinking. It is about creating an environment that enables learners the feeling if being connected to their teacher as well as their peers. This theoretical framework characterizes practices of collaborative-constructivist learning experiences in developing three dimensions that depend on each in order other for learner s to have deep and meaningful learning, which are called: Social teaching and cognitive presence. Social presence is where one is able to identify with the community that person have trust in the environment because he/she is allowed to communicate purposefully. This presence has three categories which are affective expression, Open communication and group cohesion. The second one is cognitive presence that is described as a degree in which learners are able to give ideas and validate mean through discourse and sustained reflection this presence has four faces which are to trigger events, integration, exploration and resolution and lastly teaching presence which is about direction, designing and facilitating of social and cognitive processes in order for one to realize the importance of learning. DIGITAL DIVIDE It is a game between those who have digital technology and those without it. It is influenced by three stages, which are the gender divide where there is gender is a gender gap in terms of accessing mobile connectivity due to a lack of income. This stage is mostly seen in developing countries where man with low income are most likely to own mobile devices that women . The second stage is social divide, this digital gap is influenced by the social circles and relationships amongst people who share an interest. Societies that are not connected to the internet get sidelined since they don’t share internet benefits of the connected groups, this is called social stratification. Lastly is the universal access divide stage, this stage creates a gap between people which have haves and have-nots, whereby people with disabilities are not accommodated when it comes to accessing the internet due to their inability to exploit available softwares and hardwares. Digital divide has it’s main causes which are the lack of education, income level whereby high income earners are mostly likely to own digital devices, have access to the internet or high speed internet connectivity than those from low income backgrounds. Geographical restriction is another cause of digital divide whereby countries that are more economically developed have access to variety of technologies and high speed internet. Motivation and general interest is another cause if digital divide which in most cases it is caused by income whereby those without devices, internet connection don’t see the necessity of learning digital skills. Lastly digital literary is also part of digital divide which is caused by the lack of physical access to technology, teachers and learners who are from environments with divided are likely to learn the necessary digital skills and it becomes a disadvantage to learners who are not exposed to such technologies.
