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I appreciated this visual of collaboration, too. The "under the surface" work is often the most essential, but least visible component to successful collaborative project. The most foundational layer requires individuals to make themselves visible...and for many that is the most challenging part!

Wow, there was a lot of good content in this article. One of my biggest take aways from the article is the great misapplication of online communities. The misapplication lies in the idea that a community follows an online course, like what we are doing right now in 543. The discussion community is created at the beginning of the course and members are active participants, during the course. Once the course ends, the community ends as well. This is not what the online community is intended to do. It is a long-term development of resources that needs to continue on.

This reminded me a lot of an article I shared for this assignment that also discussed the need for currently used LMS-based systems to move toward encompassing PLNs and Web 2.0 tools to up their social networking components. I think this is definitely an important consideration, especially for educators working in an online environment.

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.

It seems to be a common misconception that "Connectivist Learning" is meant to replace traditional methods of instruction. I came across similar articles that focused on the challenges or "failings" of connectivist learning. They cited similar concerns that connectivist learning fails to provide scaffolding for new learners, that lack of instructor presence hinders students with low intrinsic motivation, and that it doesn't support learners whose critical literacy skills aren't highly developed. Conenctivism is just one of many models to consider when undertaking the task of teaching and learning.

I agree with Angela's comment that connectivist learning theory is valuable, but it should be taken with other theories for a balanced learning approach. I found the section in the article about the need and role of critically assessing content as a part of successful learning in a connectivist approach most interesting. Who is producing the best content for learning networks to use? Are the networks themselves? How much depth do the most networks dive into any topic to produce critical literacy content? I think it is important to emphasize the quality of the production of content as well as the consumption of others' work.

I found the discussion about the four major types of activity that enhance learning to be interesting 1) aggregation 2) relation 3) creation 4) sharing. I sense this being modeled in EdTech 543.