Virtual communities of collaborative learning for higher education

This article aims to outline and project three new learning scenarios for Higher Education that, after the emergence of ICT and communication through the Network-lnternet, have appeared under the generic name of virtual communities. To that end, we start from a previous conceptual analysis on collaborative learning, cooperative learning and related concepts taking place in these communities and serving as a basis for sorting them into three types in particular: communities of educational work, professional practice and scientific knowledge. Virtual communities where the activities undertaken and skills acquired are set as important parts of our personal learning development, which are necessary to build the knowledge society.