Group items tagged

"a guide for selecting and assembling a technological platform to support communities of practice across a large organization. To this end, the report addresses four questions: What makes communities of practice different from garden-variety online communities? Every group that shares interest on a website is called a community today, but communities of practice are a specific kind of community. They are focused on a domain of knowledge and over time accumulate expertise in this domain. They develop their shared practice by interacting around problems, solutions, and insights, and building a common store of knowledge. What categories of community-oriented products exist and what are they trying to accomplish? The ideal system at the right price does not exist yet, though a few come really close. But there are eight neighboring categories of products that have something to contribute and include good candidates to start with. Analyzing these categories of products yields not only a scan of products, but also a way of understanding the various aspects of a knowledge strategy based on communities of practice. What are the characteristics of communities of practice that lend themselves to support by technology? Technology platform are often described in terms of features, but in order to really evaluate candidates for a technology platform, it is useful to start with the success factors of communities of practice that can be affected by technology. The third section of this report provides a table of thirteen such factors with examples of how a technology platform can affect the success of a community in each area. How to use the answer to these questions to develop a strategy for building a platform for communities of practice? Most of the product categories can be a starting point for building a general platform. In fact, this analysis of the field suggests a strategy for approach the task. Decide what kinds of activities are most

The Toolkit is organized around the same four elements of the Certification Criteria for Linked Learning Pathways: Pathway Design: Quality pathways are designed with a structure, governance, and program of study that provides all students with opportunities for both postsecondary and career success. Engaged Learning: In supportive learning communities, students meet technical and academic standards and college entrance requirements through real-world applications, integrated project-/problem-based instruction, authentic assessments, and work-based learning. System Support: District policies and practices provide leadership, support, and resources to establish and sustain quality pathways. Evaluation and Accountability: A systemic evaluation process documents the pathway's impact on high school achievement and postsecondary success and drives the pathway's continuous improvement plans.

How does a motivated group of self-learners choose a subject or skill to learn? How can this group identify and select the best learning resources about that topic? How will these learners identify and select the appropriate technology and communications tools and platforms to accomplish their learning goal? What does the group need to know about learning theory and practice to put together a successful peer-learning program?

What does successful learning look like? ...Not a series of remembered ideas, reproduced for testing, and quickly forgotten. But something flexible that is already integrated with the other things a learner knows.

"Collaborating effectively is craft, not science. There are common patterns underlying any successful collaboration, but there is no one way to do it well. It is too context-dependent, and there are too many variables. Even if best practices might be applicable in other contexts, most of us do not have the literacy to implement or adapt them effectively. We think we lack knowledge or tools, but what we actually lack is practice."

"Established companies are "held captive by their customers," in Christensen's phrase, and so routinely ignore emerging markets of buyers who are not their customers. Dominant companies prosper by making a good product and keeping their customer base by using sustaining technologies to continue improving it. The products get ever better-but at some point their quality overshoots the level of performance that even the high end of the market needs. Typically, this is when a disruptive innovation lands in the marketplace at a lower price and relatively poor level of performance-but it's a level adequate for what the lower end of the market seeks. The disruptive technology starts to attract customers, and is on its way to staggering the industry's giants. "Sustaining innovation makes good products better-but then you don't buy the old product. They're replacements. They do not create growth." To bring these powerful ideas into the real world, Christensen in 2001 founded the consulting firm Innosight (www.innosight.com) with Mark Johnson, M.B.A. '96. Now employing about 100, the company works mostly with Fortune 100 companies that are seeking to defend their core businesses and adapt to disruptive environments. It also coaches them on how to disrupt markets proactively, harnessing disruption's engine of growth for themselves. "It's hard to do both," says David Duncan, a senior partner at Innosight who earned a Harvard Ph.D. in physics in 2000. "As successful companies get bigger, their growth trajectories flatten out, and they need to find new ways to expand. But that will look different from what they did in the past. Most are so focused on maintaining their core business that when push comes to shove, the core will almost always kill off the disruptive innovation-the new thing. "The two goals conflict for resources," he continues. "CEOs are accountable to shareholders and feel Wall Street pressure to meet earnings targe