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Although many organizations create groups that include people of varying specialties to complete specific problems, people are organizing themselves into communities of practice, informal groups who share "expertise and passion" for a common interest. These communities are new to the business world because their spontaneous, informal nature makes them difficult to supervise. Managers cannot mandate communities of practice, they can only create a supportive environment. Members self select based on common interests and perceived advantage. The authors provide examples from Hill's Pet Nutrition and Hewlett-Packard. While communities should not be forced into creation, managers can cultivate them by identifying potential CoPs that will benefit the company's "strategic capabilities", provide infrastructure to them, and assess their value to the business through "nontraditional methods." Business managers need to realize the wealth of potential available to them through communities of practice.

Prior to my studies in the Educational Technology program, I had never heard of the term Communities of Practice. Until I read this article, I have only seen research about CoP in education. This article begins by discussing CoP in business, and how long CoP has been around as well its benefits for businesses. I was really surprised to hear how long CoP has been around, you would think more businesses would invest the time to develop them. A couple examples mentioned show that it can take up to a year or more before change is implemented, but the long term benefits are worth it. Also, I noticed that another article broke down information in a table, much like the "Snapshot Comparison" section in this article. This is a nice way to compare things in an easy to read and understandable format.

This article, while a bit longer, introduces and explains communities of practice in an in depth and thorough fashion. I enjoyed the comparison to real-life companies organization and the history coming all the way from Ancient Greece. Two of my favorite comments states that communities offer "creative ways that foster new approaches to problems" and "they give you both the golden eggs and golden goose that lays them". It makes me realize how essential deeper understanding and knowledge can be developed within these types of communities. The article also develops an understanding of a comparison chart of different types of work groups to show when using communities of learners are most effective.

This article explains the basic idea of personal learning networks, especially related to e-Learning. The author makes the argument that the education system needs to adapt the ideas behind personal learning networks in order to be successful in the future.

This article discusses the important trends in personal learning environments. It talks of its importance in life long learning, informal learning, the impact of different learning styles and how technology is playing a huge role in our education today,

This is paper written back in 2007 about PLNs. The author argues that PLN are the future of elearning because of the power they have to offer individualized learning and give the learner the opportunity to organize his/her own learning. That educational institutions cannot expect to simply recreate the same forms of learning used in tradition education online. rather that we must learn to adapt to the new and emerging technologies of ubiquitous computing and social software. Considering that this article was written 9 years ago, I found it to be extremely accurate and representative of PLNs today.

The article looks at personal learning environments and discusses the possibility that some form of PLE will be needed as part of the future of learning. It also discusses the need for changes in education to accommodate PLEs as current teaching methodology is out of date with how current students wish to learn.

This article pushes for a change in learning through Personal Learning Environments. This article recognizes that PLEs help to foster lifelong learning though providing multiple tools and resources to support the learning. It is argued that this learning does not have to be a formal, institutional learning, but can be informal which adapts for different styles of learning. A very interesting aspect of the article to me is the addressing of assessment and how the learning that has taken place through the PLE would be assessed. This primarily explains that evidence could be shown through artifacts and possibly an e-Portfolio. It later goes on to explain what a PLE would look like which include a copious amount of tools that one uses daily for learning. These tools primarily would be comprised of what is called social software connecting collaborators. The important take away from this article is that a PLE is not a tool to be implemented, but instead an approach for the use of a web of tools for learning and sharing creating a bridge between the learner and the world outside.

@kcastello Thanks for the article! I particularly like the distinction you made between PLEs as an approach, not a tool.

This post describes PLN's and what they look like and the purpose they serve. The author goes on to describe ways people use PLN's, provides a chart with resources, and my favorite part was the stages of PLN adoption section which helps newbies get started without feeling overwhelmed.

Wegner talking about CoP. Again, although it is a short summary overview, it makes several key points which help my understanding. Firstly that the challenge which can arise in a CoP can become like a sort of curriculum which is wired on and developed. Learning, sharing happen and even new knowledge creation. As he talks about tools he makes it clear that such online tools are not in themselves CoP bbut the tools which enable them. Interesting and digestible.

I like this overview a lot. Thank you for posting. He makes CoPs sound so helpful and the people that are in them so positive and available. It makes me want to join one right now!

I enjoyed this video quite a bit. He's point at 3:25 regarding the correct usage of tools in CoPs seems obvious, but it emphasizes the need for management and organization in successful CoPs.

I really like that you chose a video. This is a great summary of what a CoP is and what it needs to be successful! Defining a community of practice is not easy but using the correct tools appropriately can make all the difference!

This was refreshing to watch a video instead of reading an article about these topics. I think that it was powerful when he mentioned that it is the learners duty to organize and be in charge of how they would like to learn and what they would like to learn. We interact daily with our coworkers, friends, family, etc. We can and do learn from all of them, it is up to how what we want to learn and to what extent.

I really enjoyed watching this video. I had searched for some videos on Communities of Practice, but this is clearly the best one I have seen. It provides a clear explanation of CoP's and even some information on what it takes in order to be successful.This is important because it shows what a successful CoP should look like.