Abstract:

Internet functions today as a natural environment for communication. Moreover, cyberspace became a common meeting place. Immersion and tele immersion makes it even easier to feel and act as if in natural social sphere, replacing in many cases face-to-face social contact. Common virtual space is inhabited simultaneously by people from different geographical zones, cultural traditions, social status, education, life style, interests and spiritual background. In this multidimensional and still common environment people need various common grounds for the exchange of information, and to share values, including spiritual ones.

There are various theoretic frameworks for understanding the phenomenon of spirituality. And within them are various features enforcing spiritual development of a person. Some of those features characterize individual as a subject of particular beliefs, predispositions, motivations and values. But in many respects even more important for the development of spirituality is type of relations with other people.
Our thesis is that at least some of that features, both individual and relational, have great educational potential and play important role in improving the effectiveness of distance learning.

Research undertaken by us has the aim in studying spiritual conditions making collaborative e-learning more effective. Virtual cooperation proves to be easier and of better quality if correlated with advanced spiritual development of the members of collaborating group, even if they communicate only online. Hence, the advanced spiritual development may be one of predictors for better, more effective collaborative learning. In the paper we will discuss the results of the study and put forward conclusions concerning the importance of spiritual development for distance learning in collaborating groups in particular and for any kind of distance learning in general.

Keywords:

Collaborative learning, spiritual development, distance education.