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This website defines and describes communities of practice. There are examples of what each element looks and sounds like. It also offers examples of how communities of practice are being implemented in different settings.

This study evaluated the CoPs in State Farm Insurance to study various variables and their impact on the effectivenss of CoPs. SOme of the varialbes include level of trust among members, connectedness, member committment, community leadership strength, perceived impact on job performance, and perceived community effetiveness.

This is a training resource that I came across from a school district in Indiana. It focuses on how professional learning communities or communities of practice can avoid becoming a passing fad in educational reform. It gives three "big ideas" that educational CoPs need to focus on to truly be successful. They are: ensuring that students learn, creating a culture of collaboration, focusing on results by holding themselves accountable.

Thank you for sharing this. Just today, my school discussed starting PLC's and I feel that is important to focus on those three big ideas. I feel that this article makes us look closely at the questions and the answer to those questions before we begin creating networks and communities. Makes me think of the UbD-approach and how we should think about what the goals are and what we want our PLC's to do specifically before making them vent sessions amongst teachers.

This paper discusses how Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) integrate formal and informal learning and help students self-regulate learning in "higher education contexts" through social media. Connectivism has given rise to the idea that "the community is the curriculum", so institutions should foster the creation of communities among their students to allow them a more personalized education. PLEs are the tools, services and communities that learners choose to use as they pursue knowledge. PLEs are an attempt to deliberately unify formal and informal learning, especially in e-learning situations. PLEs specifically address social media use and the creation of a cultivated online identity to enhance learning in the learner's chosen arena. In order to fully leverage PLEs via social media, students must use personal knowledge management (PKM) skills. S involves "creating, organizing and sharing digital content and information" and balancing contexts, among other skills. Students cano sumo mine their PLEs, but this requires knowledge management and self-regulation.

I like how this article views PLNs from the angle as if the user already has a social networking account. Most of the article I've come across have a list of steps that a person has to follow and sites that they need to sign up for, but this article assumes the reader has these log ins (because they probably do). It shows how to take what you are probably already using and turn it into a PLE to foster and grow knowledge.

"Only student who have a desire to learn will learn". We strive to make students life-long learners. This article defines the main characteristics of CoP as "The Domain", "The Community", and "The Practices". It gives examples of strengths and weaknesses, how it associates with the Constructivism Theory, and how to integrate with technology.

Debi, the initial quote really got my attention. I am more interested in getting my students interested in learning than almost anything else I do as a teacher. I think making them life-long learners through Communities of Practice might be the best way to get them to value learning over a lifetime.

SEDL gives an overview of Professional Learning Communities. In a series of articles, topics such as the history of PLC, the attributes of a functioning PLC, why they work, and what the expected outcomes of a professional learning community are.

SEDL is a nonprofit research company dedicated to educational practices. This paper was in one of their publications about change. It details the importance of professional learning communities (networks). It is a great summary of the most critical aspects of creating a PLC.

This website provides an introduction and overview of Communities of Practice, created by the individual who coined the term.

This is a great foundational piece about communities of practice. I really like the definitions provided and noted that there does not have to be an intentional community of practice for one to occur anyway.

Brief introductions are sometimes best. This link helped me furthur my understanding of CoPs. I'm still a little unsure, but I will do more research. I did like how it broke everything down so that it was easier to understand. I'm still serching for something that defines the difference between CoPs and PLNs though.

Wasko and Faraj discuss the phenomenon of shared knowledge in the digital world; why communities of practice emerge and the motivations of the participants to share knowledge. As they state, "People often behave altruistically and pro-socially, contributing to the welfare of others without apparent compensation."

Very interesting paper. It's an investigation into electronic communities of practice, especially as to "why people contribute time and effort to the provision of knowledge as a public good given the propensity for people to act out of self-interest." I think the authors results are intriguing. They find that people in these electronic communities of practice behave out of a sense of moral duty; feel that sharing knowledge and helping others is `the right thing to do'; desire to advance the community as a whole; and often make contributions in order to have the favor returned one day. In the end, the authors find that within these electronic communities of practice, people contribute time and effort through a combination of altruism and self-interest.

Communities of practice, according to this article, resemble apprenticeships in other parts of the world and in earlier times. It used to be that in order to learn you became an apprentice to a master in that topic. You formed a community of practice to learn that skill. Learning, in general, can take this form and mimic this apprentice relationship.

While the CoP references in this group have clearly illustrated the concept as defined by Wenger, I found this reference equally valuable as it illustrates the practice of these communities in life situations. This helped me solidify my understanding in a different context.

This scholarly paper focuses on COP's and the use of web 2.0 applications. Its emphasis is that web 2.0 applications improve communication and thus build community.

I chose to share this link for two reasons: 1) It describes communities of practice, ways to support CoPs through networking, social learning, and online identities. 2) It's presented via a wiki, which is a platform that embodies the spirit of SNL, CoPs and PLNs.

I found this site to be very informative in a brief way! I find sites such as this a nice way to get started on something...find out enough so you know where to go next!

I appreciate the comment in this wiki about communities of practice developing a common store of knowledge. When I first heard the term, communities of practice, a few years ago, I thought they were simply referring to a group of people with something in common, not necessarily a group with a common purpose or goal toward which they are actively working.

In this article, four panelists who are leaders of successful of successful community of practice (COP) education initiatives share their knowledge and experience on this topic and suggest best practices for online communities of educators. They suggest there is no one definition for a community of practice, rather, there exists a continuum. The panelists discuss the 90-9-1 rule- 90% of participants in an online community lurk, 9% occasionally contribute, and 1% are "rock stars".

This is a very useful discussion presented from four community of practice leaders who have share insights based on their experience creating and maintaining COP. Some of the topics discussed include the importance of leadership and support, creating a culture and climate, immediacy and quality in responses, using modeling and examples when starting the community.

Great discussion. I enjoyed that they touched base on how to encourage participation which sometimes could be the number one problem in getting the results a community of practice could produce. To further break this down the discussion focuses on the 90-9-1 rule which states there is one person actively involved in the online presence then 9 every now and againers and 90 lurkers. From there they not only suggest how to encourage participation but how to reward it as well. Overall I enjoyed this article. Great find.

The researchers conducted a study of 2,036 online students at thirty-two State University of New York colleges in the SUNY Learning Network. Participants responded to a forty-two-item survey that investigates the connection between students' sense of learning community as measured by Rovai's Classroom community Scale and teaching presence as measured by the community of Inquiry Model. The study provides insight into the important relationship between instructor's online behaviors and perceived establishment of community. The complexity of the research gives rise to further studies to continue to identify the exact instructor behaviors are most effective in establishing a course presence, while staying true to constructivist pedagogy.

This article discusses the limitations of communities of practice. There is an introduction look at the definition of communities of practice. After the discussion on the limitations they draw conclusions about what all of those limitations mean.

I have to admit that I had never heard of communities of practice until I read this article.It makes perfect sense that people with common interests and activities practice this. In fact, an example that came to mind is how, in other classes , we use the discussion board to interact virtually.

This is the only article I have seen that goes more in-depth as to the limits or negative aspects of communities of practice. The author points out that communities of practice are still evolving, so some of those limits may eventually be overcome.

While this article does delve somewhat into the nuts-and-bolts of beginning a blog (and how to use a blog to connect with other learners in your community of practice), the real emphasis is on collaboration within communities of practice through sharing your knowledge with interested colleagues. Well-written!

Specifically discussing how online communities are essential for professional development and growth in education, this report explores the factors of EDTECH that help enrich learning. The ecosystems in times of budget shortfalls provide creative means for educators to connect and stay connected to colleagues. Establishing or joining an existing community of practice is critical for educators looking to broaden their horizons. The issue is getting everyone on board and implement communities of practice within professional development workshops at schools.

Chapter 2 begins with a good description of the theory of communities of learning as a way to learn not through cognition or other previous theories but through social interaction. Communities are organized organically unlike school classes and are a places where learning can unfold.

Don't let the academic sound of the title push you away from reading this article. The author, Bopelo Boitshwarelo, presents arguments: "This paper set out to propose a research framework that will aid in advancing the research agenda of connectivism, particularly developmental work. " It is very dense with lots of synthesis of research that has been done on Activity Theory, Connectivism, and Communities of Practice from 2000 - 2011, when it was published. If you need to do a content-based paper on activity theory, connectivism, or communities of practice, this has several references listed at the end that will help you find original sources of ideas.

Thanks Melissa, this is helpful. No doubt that many of us are going to benefit from this type of research in our own academic pursuits. As you said, this study is fairly dense. But I also found that it breaks things down in nice chunks. I liked the explanation that a learning community is "a group of people learning together through continuous dialogue."

The author, Bopelo Boitshwarelo, from University of Botswana, points out the interconnections of online communities of practice, design-based research, and activity theory. The author proposes designed-based research as a framework to advance connectivism. I found the first half of this article particularly helpful with definitions and key points synthesized from pioneers in the field of connectivism. Central ideas encompass the importance of learners connecting in a CoP both as providers and gleaners of information. Learning networks or communities of practice are complex and dynamic in nature, providing challenges to researchers and studying their effectiveness. The article provides food for thought about the complexities of the interconnections of these theories and the development of frameworks to monitor and assess learning success when putting them into practice.

The authors propose seven principles that they believe will allow communities to be "alive" and connect with members.

The seven principles for designing, implementing, and evolving a community of practice is the focus of this article. It does a very good job of describing these activities in terms of promoting a growth model within the community and the members. This desire to attract and connect with more and more people will only serve to grow the communities knowledge and abilities (this is somewhat mentioned in principle #2) by opening the conversations among those who are in and outside of the community.