What I thought was cool about this particular article was that it showed all the various organizations that were/ are participating in CoPs. I think it's good to look at things in context to see how theory turns into practice.

The table was the other element that I found helpful. That sort of at-a-glance feature makes it easy to skim, something that people do more and more because of the influence of the Internet.

Thanks for a great post!

Buffy

I found this section in EdTech 543 on PLN theory, CoP, and Connectivism very useful, though I must confess that I'm still getting a handle on some of this stuff. In terms of summarizing, I really went for the sections in each article that I thought boosted my understanding of the most important parts of the article.

In other words, many of the articles that I found covered the same thing. Therefore, I only wanted to highlight the sections that stood out to me in some way and helped me expand my basic understanding, without repeating information.

Here's my list:

1.First Monday: http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3559/3131

I found out that both strong and weak connections make up a person's learning and that each are important for different reasons.

Strong ties help you create knowledge and encourage active collaboration between you and someone else (or more than one someone.)

Weak ties Give us access to new information that we wouldn't have without them. In this unit, I learned that knowledge in the future relies not as much on what we know ourselves as being able to connect with people who become receptacles of knowledge. We tap into them as needed, making it unnecessary for us to be an expert in everything. Weak ties allow us access to these sources when the need arises.

I also liked this quote, because it explained a bit about how to build these PLNs.

"Grabher and Ibert (2008) proposed a three-layered approach, consisting of a communality layer (strong ties), a sociality layer (weak ties) and a connectivity layer (very weak ties)."

2.ITDL: http://www.itdl.org/journal/jan_05/article01.htm

What really struck me about this article was the idea that knowledge has a half-life. That is to say how long does it take before it's obsolete. According to this, knowledge now doubles every year and a half. The question becomes what do we do about that? I mentioned in the previous entry that our networks become our receptacles of knowledge. That's part of the solution that's introduced in more detail in this article.

Below, you'll find a list of the principles of connectivism. It was a good refresher for me, so I included the definition plus the list:


…Connectivism is driven by the understanding that decisions are based on rapidly altering foundations. New information is continually being acquired. The ability to draw distinctions between important and unimportant information is vital. The ability to recognize when new information alters the landscape based on decisions made yesterday is also critical.

Principles of connectivism:

▪ Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
▪ Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
▪ Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
▪ Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
▪ Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
▪ Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
▪ Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
▪ Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.

3.Learning Theories: http://www.learning-theories.com/connectivism-siemens-downes.html

The real takeaway in this article is that the learner holds the responsibility for what is learned and also for sharing what they learn in a cMOOC.


4.NCTE: http://blogs.ncte.org/index.php/2016/04/professional-and-personal-learning-networks/

This article expresses the idea that our professional and personal learning and networks take place in many places and not just the classroom, though that is a part of it. However, learning can be just as valid if you meet in the local coffee shop or head out for lunch together. It encourages us to expand our ideas of what professional development really is. It's not just the conference or event we go to. It's on-going.

5.Learning Theories: http://www.learning-theories.com/communities-of-practice-lave-and-wenger.html

This one I didn't summarize, only because I really had a hard time grasping the three elements of the CoP, and I thought this site encapsulated it nicely. Incidentally, my creative assignment for this week was inspired by the reference to Star Trek fans in this post.

Here are the three elements make up CoP, and again, this information below is taken straight from the source (long quotes), because the definition is so good:

1. There needs to be a domain. A CoP has an identity defined by a shared domain of interest (e.g. radiologists, Star Trek fans, middle school history teachers, Seahawks football fans, etc.); it's not just a network of people or club of friends. Membership implies a commitment to the domain.
2. There needs to be a community. A necessary component is that members of a specific domain interact and engage in shared activities, help each other, and share information with each other. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other. In this way, merely sharing the same job does not necessitate a CoP. A static website on hunting in itself is not a community of practice. There needs to be people who interact and learn together in order for a CoP to be formed. Note that members do not necessarily work together daily, however. Wenger points to the example of Impressionist painters who sometimes met in cafes to discuss their painting styles. He indicates that even though these men normally painted alone, these kinds of interactions were essential to making them a CoP.
3. There needs to be a practice: A CoP is not just people who have an interest in something (e.g. sports or agriculture practices). The third requirement for a CoP is that the members are practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources which can include stories, helpful tools, experiences, stories, ways of handling typical problems, etc. This kind of interaction needs to be developed over time. A conversation with a random stranger who happens to be an expert on a subject matter that interests you does not in itself make a CoP. Informal conversations held by people of the same profession (e.g. office assistants or graduate students) help people share and develop a set of cases and stories that can become a shared repertoire for their practice, whether they realize it or not.


6. NCDDR: http://www.ncddr.org/cop/whatiscop.html

Provides a good, crisp explanation of CoP. This is more of a recap, but sometimes saying something in another way helps to get the point across better. What I particularly liked about this one is that it emphasizes how these communities interact based on a passion that they'd like to learn more about or to improve skills.


7.Shift eLearning: http://info.shiftelearning.com/blog/personal-learning-networks

This particular article talks about how PLNs have layers, starting with the center layer. This includes a person's mentors and friends. The next layer are people or groups that are bound by common interests. The last layer are the experts and professionals that people look to in order to gain personal knowledge.

This article also points that sometimes people get PLNs and CoPs mixed up. However CoPs take this one step further by having a profession/ professional interests in common. In other words, most Trekkies at ComicCon are not CoPs, but rather PLNs.


8.Yorks: https://blog.yorksj.ac.uk/moodle/2014/05/13/what-is-a-personal-learning-network/

I picked this one, because it has a video that I found helpful. I learn better with sound and pictures. It stresses that PLNs are not things, but rather ideas.

The other reason that I include this in my list is that the article actually provides diagrams of what different people's PLNs look like. Given that we're learning about this sort of thing in this unit, I thought I'd also mention this.

Finally, I liked that this article acknowledges that according to the Theory of Connectivism, you don't even have to know the person who you're learning from.

9.eLearning Industry: https://elearningindustry.com/build-personal-learning-networks

This elaborates on how chaos theory relates to all this, something I didn't really understand until I read this particular article. Additionally, it gives you an idea about the skills required in order to build a proper PLN...

Here's a telling quote from the article...

"In short, the concept of teams working shoulder to shoulder every day, literally and metaphorically standing by each other, talking over problems and challenges at their desks, is slowly being replaced by virtual teams who interact via social tools and platforms, use Webex for meetings, and update each other via enterprise social networks and WhatsApp. This is why the skill of being able to build one's Personal Learning Network is essential. It's time for everyone to take charge of their own professional development. One of the ways to keep on top of our game, and remain on the cutting edge of relevant skills and knowledge, is to be a part of communities of practices and to focus on building and maintaining our Personal Learning Networks with a deliberate intention to learn, share, and collaborate."

10.Wegner/ Trayner: http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/

Often times grasping a new concept is difficult without examples to show what what a particular concept might look like. This article has a sub-head that reads: "What do communities of practice look like?"

There are boxes with questions like "requests for information," "seeking experience," and "reusing assets." If you click on the plus/ minus sign on the boxes, you get taken to a short example.

Hey Terrence!

You're welcome. I hope I did it right. :)

It seemed logical to do things that way.

Cheers!

Buffy

Although I do read a lot about technology, my work in EdTech and with technology in general has a mythic quality. Very often, I write about superheroes in my blog posts and try to relate them to technology to make tech more palatable to my readers.

This website below by Dr. Janina Scarlet is one of my favorites, and I read it often. She is a therapist who uses superheroes to teach people about concepts in psychology. I'd like to do the same thing for tech.

http://www.superhero-therapy.com/

Cheers,

Buffy