I found this resource to be helpful in understanding a CoP more objectively. So many of the resources I found and read focus on education, which is my profession, but I think viewing CoP examples from other professional fields truly illustrated the versatility of CoPs. Exploring CoPs through other fields provided a broader context for the value of communities of practice.

This paper not only defines a PLN and the value that can be brought to teachers through participation, but it also reviews three popular PLNs: Classroom 2.0, Edmodo, and The Educator's PLN. Lastly, it discusses design aspects that facilitate communication, sharing, and learning.

This blog post thoroughly defines PLNs, even addressing the debate over its acronym. Is it professional or personal learning networks? This post settles on a happy medium: personalized learning network. This entry goes beyond the definitions as it addresses both the barriers to PLNs and what can be gained from them. It also offers suggestions on how to build a PLN and helpful links.

This site not only defines personal learning networks, but it also provides ten reasons educators need a PLN. It further offers links to helpful resources to illustrate each reason.

Preface: I am not counting this as a resource for my assignment, but I do think this page is awesome in that it offers so many established PLNs to join by category. If you are looking to grow or expand your PLN, this would be a great place to look.

This open textbook chapter defines and illustrates the concepts of connectivism. Additionally, it covers the learning principles behind it and explores how it applies to teaching and learning.

This paper explores connectivism and the differences between learning theories and instructional theories. It looks at connectivism through both lenses and addresses how learning and collaboration will continue to evolve.

This wiki page thoroughly addresses several aspects of connectivism in a neat bulleted format. In addition to listing the basic principles of the theory, it also explores it through Ertmer and Newby's 5 question framework. In exploring connectivism through a pedagogical approach, it provides insight into the roles of educators and students.

This blog entry provides a basic definition for a Personal Learning Network(PLN) and links to supporting videos to conceptualize a PLN. This blog is appealing since it addresses PLNs from a teacher perspective. It further addresses how PLNs help educators stay connected.There is a nice visual of ways to create and grow a PLN.

Although this site is dedicated to knowledge management, this particular page focuses on what Communities of practice are, and it explains what learning is like within communities of practice. The bulleted lists are particularly helpful in summarizing the key concepts of CoPs.

This online toolkit offers a brief and well-organized overview of communities of practice (CoP). It begins with a short description and follows with the history CoPs. It then offers a bulleted list of when to utilize CoPs and even provides further advice on how-to use. This site was particularly helpful in that it also offers tips and lessons learned from others as well as examples, stories, and other resources. Overall, it is organized and affords users a plethora f information on Communities of Practice.

This article provides an excerpt from the book, Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge by Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder. This pieces notes what CoPs are and what makes them successful. It explores seven design principles to help CoPs thrive and evolve. Each principle is explained and supported with understandable real-world examples.

This article goes beyond the basic definitions of CoPs as it provides where communities can be found and the importance of CoPs to organizations and offers suggestions to develop and nurture CoPs.

This resource illustrates a CoP first, and then it uses this example to explain the components of CoPs: domain, community, and practice. It further provides examples fo what CoPs look like.

Participate Learning's OCLP gives you options to find and participate in Twitter chats more easily, find and curate educational resources, or take an online course. New and experiences Twitter users will love the ease with which one can follow their favorite chats with the chats feature, which also allows users to save resources shared within the chats into an educational resource collection for easy access later. Schedules for Twitter chats are posted, so one can find a chat conveniently.