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From Harvard business school this text by Dr. Etienne Wenger with its brief outline is for "cultivating" communities of practice.

The author provides seven principles for creating effective CoPs. Each of the principles is detailed throughout the article in an effort to get the most out of your CoP. These principles are geared towards corporations and business but many of them can easily be transitioned into the classroom.

While this article overall is about designing a CoP, I felt it was insightful because it informs the reader of factors that contribute to a successful CoP and the elements required to form one.

This article opens by explaining that personal learning networks are about learning through interactions with others in multiple ways. These PLNs allow learners to join multiple groups and access resources to help them learn when needed. One big topic it hits on is how the learning is initiated by the learner on their own. The writer goes on to say that today there is access to so much information on the internet that makes it so much easier to access the resources to help people learn. It also discusses how learning is self-directed yet the resources within the personal learning network can make that easier.

This article describes a PLN and focuses on the lifelong learning aspect that a PLN creates. It also lists 10 awesome benefits that participating in a PLN can provide.

This article explains how PLN's foster lifelong learning. It explains how learning via PLN's is more motivating than the standard methods of professional development.

In this article, the author explains what a PLN is, how to develop a PLN and the gains of a PLN. Novak states that PLNs are one of the best resources to motivate lifelong learners. Educators can connect with other learners and better themselves. They can communicate and collaborate in the sharing and exchanging of new ideas and information. There are several benefits of PLNS including learning anything, anytime, anywhere, and with anybody.

This book chapter delves into the interesting habits that teachers have when it comes to their practice. They generally stick with what is comfortable for them. When the community of practice is thrown into the mix, it allows teachers to be even more comfortable with different styles and ideas through informal professional interactions. This article has a big emphasis on policy changes, which is an important part of daily life as a teacher.

In this TEDx talk by George Siemens he discusses connections. He begins to discuss this through his own personal background. He pushes inherently through his talk for a change in education. He pushes that the importance of education is connectedness and implies that education currently is inhibiting this connectedness. He says that many platforms for students to be connected are often locked down which I can also say I have found to be true. He parts the talk that he believes the primary task of education is connectedness and that we need to collapse education down to this to cause our students to become better members of society.

Great resource! I like his comment that transparency makes us all instructors and the concept of bringing it all down to connections and connectedness.

I think Tim said it best up there... it's best to get information from a key contributor to connectivism. We cannot expect our students not to connect. We are lucky to be where we are in education right now.

The article opens with the idea of teachers being or becoming life long learners to achieve success, satisfaction, and empowerment in their position. This is then promoted by the idea of using PLNs to participate in the role of life long learner. PLNs are then described through a variety of scenarios including a general definition as well as additional adjective descriptions and elaborations such as engaging, exciting, and virtual friendships. How to develop a PLN follows the definition with the gains or benefits of forming PLNs wrapping up this resource. When reading through the gains it is clear that learning is the overall anticipated outcome whether it be: anytime, anywhere, with anyone, self directed, informal, formal, collaborative, or life long.

This is a good article, if you are interested in deep diving into the theory of situating learning in the context of communities of practice. I have never thought of Alcoholics Anonymous as a community of practice before. The article looks at the structuring relation between the scope of participation in communities and the production of that scope in relations of commodification and the characteristics of divided forms of labor. The article also lists a set of conceptual independencies among person, activity, knowledge, and a world that recommend a conception of learning as legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice.

This book chapter is very informative, and takes a look at some of the situations regarding identity in a community of practice. There are many different roles one can take in a CoP. I enjoyed this chapter, because it took a look at Yucatec Mayan midwives. Which, as it sounds is an important role played in this community. There is a sort of apprentice mindset when learning something, and I find the same structure in teaching.

Another great youtube video that describes connectivism in layman terms. I like this video because it explains easily how connectivism works by connecting people together through social sites to help people learn. The video also gives a brief description of Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism. A great find!

Joanna, I loved this YouTube video! It simplified Connectivism and Bob was fun! I loved when he made the connection. Thank you for sharing.

I agree with Matt above. This is a short and informative introduction to connectivism that touches on the major concepts of learning theory as well as implications in our time.

A brief video discussing PLNs that provides a sample scenario of PLNs.

An informative look at how PLNs work and the benefits of a PLN. Told from the perspective of a scenario in which the PLN is not initially accepted as a valuable tool of learning, the creator of this video shows that a PLN offers: 1. user ownership, 2. user independence, 3. user self-determination. The video goes on to show the benefits of collaborating through PLNs.

This video offers a decent introduction to PLNs. I like that it approaches the topic from the perspective of someone who is skeptical and encourages everyone to become a life long learner.

A cute powtoon video discussing the benefits of Connectivism as a learning theory. In the video she explains that an a advantage of connectivism is that the learner can connect with people around the world and understand different perspectives. Connectivism also encourages critical thinking and indepth examination of a topic.The important thing is not to know everything about a topic, but to know where to go to find the information.

This is an excellent resource! The video gives us a very nice summary and delves into the implications of a connected world and where we're living today. I am likely to use this video later on.

I appreciate the visual components of this resource and third person example of "Amy's" usage of connectivsim. Using Amy as an example this video allowed us to see the overall picture of connectivism theory as well as how it would look when being used by a student, switching our perspective of the theory from that of the teacher to that of the student.

Learning communities help to share the responsibilities of student success within a school system. Since PLNs require a shared goal, when used in a school it helps align the vision for students, teachers, and administrators. PLNs are a continuous cycle of research, planning, and implementation. They are data driven and reflected upon. Everyone within the PLN is responsible for the development and implementation of the community. When everyone participates it creates an environment of trust and expertise that can be shared equally amongst all of the members. The learning that takes place within PLNs helps to keep school systems aligned and functioning.

This was a very interesting article that really had me thinking deeper bout PLN. One specific line " Learning communities convene regularly and frequently during the workday to engage in collaborative professional learning to strengthen their practice and increase student results" really caught my eye. How does one find time for such intensive participation? Separate from that I like the idea of learning being a group responsibility and not just an individual one.

Hi Ryann, I love this article and how it chunks the topics into easy comprehension for the reader. Collective responsibility stuck out to me the most. I think this is so important whenever tackling a project as a team. The team is interdependent and I think its important for each member to take responsibility of their strengths that they bring to the table. Nice article!

Stephen Downes, in Learning Networks in Practice, details a concise history of personal learning environments, including communities of practice. He also ties this evolution in thought and practice to Web 2.0. He emphasizes creation, not consumption, as well as context, not class. Learning becomes more informal and multi-disciplinary. Downes acknowledges that the "theory" of PLEs can't specify an organization that will facilitate learning better than any other organization. Instead, he presents 4 parts of a 'semantic principle'. These parts will support personal learning environments and, in his opinion, will be more effective for learning: diversity, autonomy, connectedness and openness.

In this article three academic librarians seek to find ways to remain relevant and improve their role among the faculty as technology expands people's access to information. In order to foster this growth, however, the authors quickly realize that they must first establish a strong community of practice for librarians before they can really integrate themselves into the academic community. The most interesting part of this article is that the authors stumbled upon this realization by accident. Through the process of providing a service they thought their faculty needed, they ended up discovering what their faculty wanted the most from the library staff. They established a CoP among campus librarians that was focused around the real needs of the academic community. This experience triggered a significant increase in faculty/librarian collaboration. The authors conclude the article by talking about some of the ways in which CoPs can help improve the status of librarians in academia.

The authors springboard from a Cornell University study of the difficulties that humanities doctoral students have in finishing their degree to discuss the ways libraries can help improve student success. They show that the establishment of communities of practice are a necessary component of the success of doctoral students in the humanities. They then advocate for libraries to create and support these communities through providing designated space for doctoral students to collaborate and share information in the library and by offering discipline-specific research skills workshops.

This is a step-by-step guide to setting up and growing CoP. It defines CoP and discusses why they are important. The guide also outlines how to establish and grow the community. At the heart of any successful CoP is purpose. A rubric is given to help identify the effectiveness of the community both in terms of infrastructure and language of inquiry.

I really liked this article, it gave some great information on CoP and the bullets on the first page were a nice outline of why CoPs are important and useful.

This article provides a step-by-step guide for designing and cultivating communities of practice in higher education. The first part of the guide is for those who are considering the use of CoPs to facilitate collaboration, learning, or knowledge generation and want to know more. That last part of the guide helps CoP designers and facilitators understand the questions, issues, and options involved in planning and cultivating communities https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/nli0531.pdf