Relationship – education – understanding: building virtual learning communities not only in the times of pandemic

The aim of the article is to analyze the process of education carried out in the conditions of online teaching. The author pays special attention to organizing the learning community. Learning is understood as the process of creating knowledge, where interaction and cooperation of students play an important role. The narrative is an extension of the thesis that in the case of distance learning there is a need to build a community of learners, where equally high importance is given to both cognitive and emotional effects. An important role of the teacher is to care for the mutual relations of students in virtual educational networks. The learning process carried out in a properly organized virtual network of students’ cooperation leads from mutual communication to understanding the content and creating knowledge, and learning becomes a very active mental process. The article discusses selected concepts of learning based on the cooperation of learners, the characteristics of which are translated into the model of collaborative learning in a virtual space, using the tools of modern digital technologies. The article indicates the importance of social relations in students’ virtual communities and the advantages of students’ educational activities in the digital space.