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favorite quote, "It is important, though, to recognize that technological age has changed the face of learning so significantly that new approaches should be considered and studied."

Jodi, I too selected a quote when I was reading this article ... I didn't see your post because I went right to the article! My favourite quote is different though: "Downes (2007) states that 'to teach is to model and demonstrate, to learn is to practice and reflect' (p. 1) as a summation of connectivism." Another thing I appreciate about this article is how concisely it incorporates Downes and Siemens ideas about Connectivism. It boils everything down into a simple "this is how it is" approach. Nice, quick read!

I liked reading Siemens principles of connectivism. They give great meaning to using connectivism in teaching. I think that the teacher must be able to explain the process before they can put into affect.

A good description of how connectivism is a social learning theory for the digital age. An interesting quote about other learning theories: "While these theories are essential to learning in many environments, a new dimension of principles must be developed when learning moves into informal, networked and technological enabled areas."

Melodie, this is a nice and concise article about connectivism. The author does a good job of explaining Downes and Siemens work in a clear but not overly wordy way, especially with the bulleted lists.

This article is an outstanding review by Mark K. Smith of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger's theories of social learning through communities of practice. It gives a great overview of the theoretical foundations as well as additional explanations of those theories.

This article outlines the theory and practice of communities of practice, and discusses the idea that learning is social and comes from of our experience of participating in daily life. The authors identify a variety of types of CoPs that all humans are engaged in, even if they are not formally identified as such. A CoP is defined along three dimensions: what it is about, how it functions, and what capabilities/resources it has produced. Also emphasized are the importance of the relationships formed between the people within the CoPs - hence, the community in CoP. Stemming from that, they extend the idea of CoPs to apply to the classroom culture and environment and discuss the need for educators to cultivate a similar idea to best facilitate learning among their students.

The point that I learned from this article is that communities of practice go beyond the acquisition of knowledge and skill. They build relationships where people within the community work together to share their skills, knowledge, and interests they have learned in order to complete new or more complex tasks. We learn best through active participation.

Articles like this one make it clear that we are actively involved in communities of practice every day, without even realizing it. This is largely due to the internet; now, if one needs to reach out to another person for advice on baking, for example, one can use online forums or message boards to connect to others in their community of practice. This was not possible before the internet, or at the very least it was difficult to accomplish so easily. I'm interested to learn a little more about what COPs might have looked like before the internet.

Learning is social and takes place by participating in daily life. Learning takes place situationally in communities of practice. These communities of practice exist all around us: home, work, school, etc. As we pursue our goals within our groups, learning occurs. Members off s community of practice (CoP) are united by common activities and by what they learn through participating in those activities. A community of practice is defined by three factors, "what it is about," "how it functions," and "what capability it has produced." For a community of practice to be effective, it needs to "generate and appropriate a shared repertoire of ideas, commitments and memories." There also need to be resources like documents, tools, procedures, and a shared vocabulary. The the developers of this theory, Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, focused on the kinds of "social engagement" that caused learning to take place. People join groups and initially learn from the periphery. Eventually, they become more proficient through their participation as they move toward the center of the group. The situation in which the learning occurs has a significant effect on the learning.

After reading through this article, I kept coming back to this quote: "Rather than looking to learning as the acquisition of certain forms of knowledge, Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger have tried to place it in social relationships - situations of co-participation." These are ideas I try to integrate into my classroom on a day-to-day basis because healthy social relationships can enhance learning experiences due to students becoming vested in goals. Students are more willing to put their feet outside of the box, without fear of sharing and participating in these learning environments---and they become active inside members of these groups, rather than outside onlookers.