Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

I love Educause! They do great work, and this quick overview of PLE shows why. Great overview from a great organization.

An overview of the Personal Learning Environment.  Begins with a great example of the power of a PLE.  It then breaks down the idea of PLE.  Excellent starter resource on the topic.

This article gives a brief overview of personal learning environments and discusses the following seven topics: 1) What is it? 2) Who is doing it? 3) How does it work? 4) Why is it significant? 5) What are the downsides? 6) Where is it going? 7) What are the implications for teaching and learning?

The entire Educause 7 things you should know about . . . series is fantastic. This gives you a quick, clear explanation of PLE's that anyone could understand.

With topics like what is it, who's doing it, why is it significant, where is it going, and what are the future implications for education, this article provides a good primer for someone who is being introduced to PLEs for the first time.

I love the simple straight forward layout of this article. Educause is pretty cool. 7 really valid points to consider. I especially like learning about schools that are utilizing PLEs.

First, this is cool that it is authentic material by one of the originators of connectivism. It gives an insight into what a connectivist class looks like and into how one may go about managing the many loosely joined pieces form an instructor standpoint. It does not offer a lot of detail about the theory but looked at holistically, gives a complete skeleton view of the connectivist classroom.

Slide presentation providing overview of personal learning and learning environments in connectivism highlighting the distribution of knowledge across a network of connections.

This is a scholarly paper where Stephen Dowes discusses Personal Learning Environments (PLE) centered around the theory of connectivism. His discussion suggests that web 2.0 is unsuitable and too limiting for online learning. He suggests that in the PLE "management of learning migrates from the institution to the learner" (p. 15). In this way, the learner consumes resources as well as creating them.

I had a difficult time finding articles on PLN & PLE that were theoretical and not practical in nature. This article by Stephen Downes actually explores the connection between PLNs and Connectivism.

This site goes over, in detail, what a community of practice is. I had a little trouble understanding what the concept was referring to from the class material, but after reading this site, I was no longer confused. It defines a Community of Practice and breaks it down on a basic level. It provides the three requirements and explains what a CoP basically does. It is very informative.

Article describing communities of practice. Where they come from, and where they are being applied.

Wenger 2006, I chose this article because I recognized his name from my 503 reading. He does explain CoPs well. Wenger states there are three charateriestics crucial to being a CoP. They are: domain or the common interest; community or the interaction, and practice or the fact that the members are practitioners. He coined the phrase community of practice in reference to the living curriculum of apprentices.

Etienne Wegner is a leader in the field of CoP. He along with Jean Lave coined the term. This is his website and it provides a direct introduction to the concept and the application of communities of practice.

This is the website of Etienne Wenger, one of the leading researcher's of communities of practice. This website contains an overview of his theory and links to his papers. Wenger studied the learning process in apprenticeship situations and found that most learning and sharing of knowledge actually takes place between the community of advanced apprentices and journeymen.

Wenger defines what makes a CoP different from a group of friends who like some of the same things, people who share the same occupation, or 30-somethings who all like romantic comedies. CoPs must consist of a group of people who pursue a certain focus and help the members obtain more skills/knowledge in the process. He explains where the term came from and various ways in which it is applied today.

I'm sure many people have listed this one but it does seem like the place to start; at the source. I do like that the wenger does speak in plain language, especially in the call out boxes.

I agree with Richard, especially since the term gets used loosely and tends to mean many different things. One of the articles I found deals with contrasting four different definitions of Communities of Practice.

In this Web site Etienne Wenger introduces the concept of "communities of practice" and defines them as "groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly" and describes why they are useful for learning in many different contexts. A community of practice has 3 characteristics- 1) an identity defined by a shared domain of interest 2) a community of members that engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information and 3) members who are practitioners. These communities develop their practice through activities such as sharing information, problem solving, and mapping knowledge. Communities of practice are ubiquitous and can be small or large, local or global, meet face-to-face or online, informal or formal.

Wegner describes three characteristics necessary for a community to be a "community of practice." These are the domain of interest, a community of members that engage in activities and discussions that allow them to learn from one another, and the actual practice or application of that learning. Wegner also describes what CoPs look like, the theory behind CoPs, and the environments in which they are used.

This site by Etienne Wenger gives an overview of what a community of practice is. You will find definitions and descriptions, as well as applications. There are also resources listed concerning application and learning theory.

Communities of practice are groups of people who share the same job or a common interest in a subject. They come together to form a link to help each other perform in the world around them. This article talks about the value of communities of practice and how and why they work.

Eckert, P. (2006). Communities of practice. ELL, 2, 683-685. In this article, Mrs. Eckert does a great job in simplifying what a community of practice entails and means. She allows you to visualize the communities you belong to as well as other communities of practice you interact with or observe on a daily basis. One important distinction is that the author of this work is written from the sense of sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology and not from an educator's mind set. Irrespective of this standpoint, you can see direct correlations to where students understand themselves and what communities of practice your own student population may fall under. In order to understand the social development of communities of practice Mrs. Eckert does a good job in breaking down common cores that can emerge from memberships. The linguistic side she writes, "A white working class Italian-American woman does not develop her ways of speaking directly from the larger categorical working class, Italian American, and female, but from her day to day experience as a person who combines those three memberships. Her experience will be articulated by her participation in activities and communities of practice that are particular to her place in the social order."(Eckert, 2006) Building upon that theory, she discusses the importance of social space "Emma Moore's study of teenage girls in Northern England (Moore 2003) traced the gradual split of a group of somewhat rebellious "populars" as some of them emerged as the tougher "townies" in their ninth year. In the process, the vernacular speech patterns of the "townies" intensified in opposition to those of their more Conservative friends". (Eckert, 2006) While the article sheds more light on the development of speech patterns and dialects through the medium of communities, we can also see the definition in practice in which a collection of people gather together over a common interest and then orients to their new surrounding

This is just a basic definition of communities of practice. It is a very easy way to understand it.

Communities of practice (CoP) are created through a community of people who have common interests. In communities of practice, Eckert (2006) explains "a community of practice develops ways of doing things, views, values, power relations, and ways of talking" (p.1). CoP's have a way of providing a personal identity and a way of speaking within a CoP.

I like this resource because it comes directly "from the source," Etienne Wenger, who came up with the terminology and brought the concept more into the forefront in education. The clear definition and examples of what a CoP looks like are also beneficial in reviewing the theory behind the concept. I also appreciate the background information Dr. Wenger provides in this resource, as it helps the reader to understand how communities of practice originated.

I posted a link to another publication by Wenger, but found this resource to be more succinct in the discussion of CoPs. As a new student in education, this summary is especially helpful when attempting to understand the "theory behind the concept".

Angela another great pick. I think the biggest key to this resource is a practical demonstration of a PLN for us to utilize. As information is presented we should not only be able to explain but use the resources! Living the theory is just as important as knowing it.

This is a very thorough breakdown of what makes up a community of practice. Also some good links in there (though a few were broken which I find common in Wiki's). Thanks to you posting this site/CoP which I had never heard of http://www.tappedin.org/.

Angela, While doing the research I came across this site as well but did not incorporate it my finds. I'm a big fan of Wikipedia and use it quite a bit for definitions and attaining public domain images. This Edutech Wiki is very complete with definitions and examples. A great resource.

I've never seen the edutech wiki site. I will have to remember this. I also like using wiki from the basics like definitions. This has some great definitions and break down of communities of practice.

I love to gather information from WIKIs. CoP networks are present in almost everything we do. Thanks for sharing!