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"The basic argument made by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger is that communities of practice are everywhere and that we are generally involved in a number of them - whether that is at work, school, home, or in our civic and leisure interests. In some groups we are core members, in others we are more at the margins." In these communities we share information and resources that further our education.

This article begins by explaining communities of practice. The article cites Wenger who states that a community of practice defines itself among three different dimensions which are what it is about, how it functions, and what capability it has produced. It explains that there are a vast number of different types of communities of practice and that in our daily lives we are a part of a number of them whether a central member or more on the outskirts. Being an educator myself, I really appreciated the final section of the article which explains implications for educators. It explains that learning occurs through interactions with people, we as educators work so that students may become members of communities of practice, and the importance of thinking through the connection between knowledge and practice.

This article is a great starting piece for understanding the theory and basic practices of communities of practice. You get background information on the work of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. In addition to this background information on communities of practice the article also discusses some of the issues and implications for educators,.

Edutopia writer Vicki Davis discusses how PLNs have empowered her students to guide their own learning experiences. She discusses the weaknesses of PLNs and how they work.

While this blog posting from Edutopia does point to some "how tos" and practical application, it does offer key theoretical practices for setting the stage for applying the PLN model for student use. Vicki Davis, the teacher and author of the blog post, states that her students are familiar with breaking news due the development of their own PLN that acts as a "virtual locker." She goes on to discuss how their research builds the content of their PLN and the content changes based upon the assignment. The big idea is that the PLN model allows students to act as the orchestrator of their own learning and allows them to analyze information via an avenue that is personalized to student's learning needs. It also teaches students to embrace connectivism where they make connections between domains in order to form a more complete understanding.

The article goes into the role of a PLN for students. Students can create their own networks to possess information at their fingertips on any topic they could ever desire. By establishing a networking system, the students don't necessarily have to go out and scour the internet for sources when their network could bring relevant information to them.

This study examines how adults learn from one another within a workplace environment. As the article highlights: "[Informal] learning at work constitutes a large part of the learning undertaken by adults . . ." The article determined that large worksites afforded a range and variety of communities of practice, informal learning opportunities, and types of learning within a worksite. However, very often, the people we learn from at work are not necessarily recognized as having a role that traditionally promotes learning.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article and I found it logical that in the example of the Tiling Teachers, the article mentioned that they considered each other peers on the same level which would facilitate the learning that takes place within that group. I wonder how this learning would contrast from feedback or learning taking place from students in the class or even a superior like a Vice President of a program or a Senior Instructional Designer?

This was a great article and got me thinking a little deeper about communities of practice. So far this week, my studies have led to articles and examples of communities of practice in a learning or educational environment. I love how the focus was really on practices of communities of practice in the workplace. It was cool to realize that this process begins way before the class even begins. Thanks for sharing.

A K-12 district, the Tri-Creek School Corp., has implemented a one-to-one laptop initiative for middle and high school students, allowing them to use social media for their school work. They are using Edmodo and Google Apps to submit assignments, leave notes for teachers, ask questions, and comment on each other's work.

This interesting article about PLNs talks about the teaching strategy that says we are in a write/read culture and PLNs are a way of allowing students to be published on the web. He says that by allowing students to publish to the web even when their work is lacking, exposes them to other posts that are better and clearer than theirs. This will encourage them and give them more incentive to improve their own work. It is a good theory.

Summary: The authors of this article clearly prove that a learner who is in control of h/her own learning will benefit the most, especially if h/she designs and navigates h/her own network. A learner will learn whether the connection is strong or weak as long as h/she has: 1) a choice in what network is joined, 2) a true passion or interest, and 3) a flexible method of communication (could be in person or via technology).

This clearly follows the belief that personalized learning is beneficial to the learner. By getting to create your PLN you are strategically picking who to network with and the topics you want to be involved in.

In this article, the discussion of personal learning networks surrounds working professionals and how they manage their professional network. The article presents a model of personal professional networking with the goal of creating a personal learning network.

This is a more technical site that better describes CoPs.  It talks about what a CoP is and what the requirements are.  I particularly like that the it states that the learning is not necessarily the primary reason for the existence of a CoP.  It also gives some sources for further study.

This article is an outline of Communities of Practice with description of relevant terminology outlined and defined. Identifies the three components of CoPs - domain, community and practice. This article says that the central component of this learning theory is to draw participants deeper into the community through the attractiveness of developing skills relative to the domain.

This one I didn't summarize, only because I really had a hard time grasping the three elements of the CoP, and I thought this site encapsulated it nicely. Incidentally, my creative assignment for this week was inspired by the reference to Star Trek fans in this post. Here are the three elements make up CoP, and again, this information below is taken straight from the source (long quotes), because the definition is so good: 1. There needs to be a domain. A CoP has an identity defined by a shared domain of interest (e.g. radiologists, Star Trek fans, middle school history teachers, Seahawks football fans, etc.); it's not just a network of people or club of friends. Membership implies a commitment to the domain. 2. There needs to be a community. A necessary component is that members of a specific domain interact and engage in shared activities, help each other, and share information with each other. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other. In this way, merely sharing the same job does not necessitate a CoP. A static website on hunting in itself is not a community of practice. There needs to be people who interact and learn together in order for a CoP to be formed. Note that members do not necessarily work together daily, however. Wenger points to the example of Impressionist painters who sometimes met in cafes to discuss their painting styles. He indicates that even though these men normally painted alone, these kinds of interactions were essential to making them a CoP. 3. There needs to be a practice: A CoP is not just people who have an interest in something (e.g. sports or agriculture practices). The third requirement for a CoP is that the members are practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources which can include stories, helpful tools, experiences, stories, ways of handling typical problems, etc. This kind of interaction needs to be developed over time. A conversation with a random stranger who happens to be an exp

Eckert looks at Communities of Practice (COP) to study situated language use. She finds that the COP is important because of "its focus on the fluidity of social space and the diversity of experience" (p. 3). She finds the COP to be complementary to the speech community and that feedback between the two approaches would provide the best process for analysis.

Communities of Practice: Eckert describes a community of practice (CoP) as a group of people who interact ongoing with a common goal or endeavor. Sometimes they come about by similar interests, the workplace, and education. She concludes that communities of practice are very powerful inside and outside the community.

Penelope Eckert discusses the value of a community of practice in linguistic studies, giving a definition for a community of practice and distinguishing it from a more conventional linguistic construct: speech communities. Communities of practice link broad social patterns with concrete, observable behavior in individuals. They emphasize individual experience over demographic generalities. They address dynamic, fringe effects within a community. They build on social constructivism as groups of people engage in active sense-making.

This is a great site to get started understanding the benefits of PLN's. In particular, I like the fact that when discussing the benefits of PLN's the author, Education in America, brings up the fact that even though teachers are surrounded by students and colleagues, teaching can be an isolating experience. I've been there, and I know that having a PLN has not only made me feel connected, but also it has helped me share ideas in a more personal way.

I liked the fact that this site recognizes that "teaching can be an isolated profession"! Very interesting article.

I have to agree with the statement in this article about teaching being an isolated profession. I felt that many times and often wished that I had the remedy. In hindsight, I think a better network would have been helpful. Most of my time spent in a traditional classroom setting (face to face instruction) was as a lone teacher in a very small school. A better PLN would have been very helpful.

8th grade students research current events and share their responses via their class wiki. This broadens their audience to their peers, thus impacting their own evaluation of their work and their peers' work.

I don't know if this link will actually work- I'm trying to bookmark #organellewars because this brilliant teacher set up a way for his students to collaborate with real scientists who work on organelles. Together the scientists and students collaborate via twitter. The conversations are amazing. If nothing else, put #organellewars in a Twitter search.

This short article is written for school administrators to convince the audience of the power the PLN can bring to their work. The article recognizes apprehensions to use twitter, defines a PLN, and finally explains how it can connect the reader to a valuable group of fellow professionals. If ebscohost doesn't work, this is the link through BSU's Library search results: b. http://boisestate.worldcat.org/oclc/4595249723&referer=brief_results

The author, a chief technology officer (CTO), does an excellent job outlining how to develop your own PLN. He challenges the reader to use Twitter, Diigo, Google+, and blog. The is an excellent beginners resource!

I like this a lot. As Jody stated above, I never really thought of connecting with others and considering them colleagues. I was more focused on just listening to their ideas and making them my own, rather than sharing collectively.

This article, while simple, points out some profound "a-ha's" about power of online personal learning networks. Online PLNs allow educators to engage in the flow of conversations without necessarily being to tied to a time and/or place. As the author points out, some of the biggest changes occur in educators when they begin to share what they know on a PLN. By sharing one's thoughts, an individual can reach a deeper understanding of his or her own understanding.

Harold Jarche offers a look at the concept of organizations moving from hierarchies to wirearchies. An argument that communities of practice prove more able to get things done in the real work--a-day world and offer a safe place for members to do highy concentrated work. My college still puts out an org chart every year showing the heirarchy of the organization. But everyone knows who the real people are that you need to connect with to get anything done.

I thought this article provided new insight in how to combine social networks and communities of practice into the workplace. Ideally, the workplace should be collaborative and cooperative, but I think most traditional organizations still operate on a hierarchy structure. I thought the term introduced in the article of "wirearchy was extremely creative.

The article discussed "connected learning communities" and how it is relevant in the digital age. There are three components (professional learning communities (PLCs), personal learning network (PLNs), and communities of practice (CoPs)) with these communities and different theories, experience and knowledge, effectiveness, anticipates growth or decline, challenges and dilemmas, and use of technology within each component.

The PLP (Powerful Learning Practice) model looked at three different learning connected learning communities to discuss what each one is, the effects on teacher professional development, challenges and use of technology to name a few. Personal learning communities, personal learning networks, and communities of practice were the three that were discussed. I like how in this article, Connectivism is tied into PLN's which demonstrates how these concepts of PLN's, CoP's, and Connectivism are interrelated. Within PLN's and CoP's, members are concerned about the content and "what they do" as well as interact amongst the group to achieve a higher purpose.

This article is fantastic as it encompasses all that we are studying right now! Each aspect was broken down very well and explained completely. I also appreciated that the authors talked about the anticipated growth, use of technology and value of a PLN, for instance. This is a great reference to refer back to later.

Great short clip that explains communities of practice for educators.

This brief but detailed summary of Wegner's 1998 idea of Community of Practice gives a basic understanding of the idea. The videos included can be useful for seeing how the idea can be helpful in education.

This resource explains what CoP is and when the theory was developed. The concept of CoP was developed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. The author uses quotes directly from their book to explain CoP. There is a video that illustrates how CoP can be used in a K-12 classroom and another video that shows how CoP can be applied in other fields. The article also differentiates between Communities of Practice and Team members. The categories include objective, membership, organization, termination, value proposition, and management. My take away from the chart was that the major difference between CoP and being a team member is this: what will be the outcome of the participant?

In this entry by First Monday, the article explores personal learning networks as it relates to our professional careers. They explore a model of personal professional networking for creating a personal learning network, based on an investigation through a literature study, semi-structured interviews and a survey.

I was quite impressed with how intricate the model was with attitude converting to attention and then these governing activity and skill on the hierarchy. The part of this article that stood out to me the most was how the interviews supported that "this attitude emerges with people who a) experience the value of their network at first hand (Hamm, 2007) and/or people who b) reflect on their work and learning in a broader perspective than their day-to-day practice (Margaryan, et. al., 2009)." I appreciate how straightforward this article was in this model.

In this article, the author explains what a PLN is and how it can be used in other work environments outside of education. The authors of the article were looking at how PLNs support different professions. The article also discusses the factors that individuals use to build and create a PLN.

Throughout this website, Etienne Wenger describes Communities of Practice 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." It strongly conveys the importance of working together and emphasizes teamwork as a vital component for success. I could not agree more.

This short summary did a really good job of making this concept simple to understand. It explains that you need three things for a COP: a domain, a community and practice. Great short explanation

This article is an overview of CoPs. The highlight for me is that it must be a collaboration over time, not a one-time Professional Development.