Communities of practice develop around things that matter to people. As a result, their practices reflect the members' own understanding of what is important. Obviously, outside constraints or directives can influence this understanding, but even then, members develop practices that are their own response to these external influences. Even when a community's actions conform to an external mandate, it is the community–not the mandate–that produces the practice.

Across business units: Important knowledge is often distributed in different business units.

Communities of practice arise as people address recurring sets of problems together

So my caution to all of us is to never ever mistake the platform for the community. It is what people do with each other using the tools that matters.

The key indicator for us is that community is present when individual and collective identity begins to be expressed; when we care about who said what, not just the what; when relationship is part of the dynamic and links are no longer the only currency of exchange (Packwood 2005).

Because most blog communities are not bounded by a technological wall and have very permeable boundaries, they can grow far beyond the ability of a single individual to keep track of his or her network.

I find this fascinating. What is it about the online communities that makes them different than the offline communities? Why is is that companies have so many problems in their communication with online communities? These are some of the aspects I am interested in researching throughout this course…

I'm a tech-lover myself, and absolutely revel in this kind of technological exploration and comparison, but I've found it's helpful to hold these conversations within a separate thread so they don't dominate the more community-oriented conversation, which they otherwise tend to do.

I didn't push back, bit I'm not at all sure I agreed with Bron. Imagine a bunch of art students arriving at a class. They need oil paints, canvas, sharpened brushes, pencils, thinners etc.

Etienne Wenger

I couldn't help but wonder whether it was a test of some kind, designed to weed out 90% of the students, :-) or at least all but the die-hard chaos freaks. :-)

there was actually something a bit exciting, even fun, about all the jostling and rustling and crunching and helping each other get a handle on what's what. 

I’ve been a part of an extremely nurturing online community, one filled with role models, many probably out of intuition rather than theory. So I do believe that some may have a certain talent for it, just as some have a talent for teaching, coaching etc.

Besides there's a lot to be said about modelling use of emerging technology for educational purposes I think - and in this case we're not just talking about it, we're using it to facilitate our own learning. I think that's brilliant!

Blogbleary eyes

There is arguably a commonality therefore between what a facilitator might do in a face to face meeting, with what they might do in an online meeting such as this. Identifying the potentially alienating aspects of a discussion and helping the group to negotiate a common appreciation of those topics

There is arguably a commonality therefore between what a facilitator might do in a face to face meeting, with what they might do in an online meeting such as this. Identifying the potentially alienating aspects of a discussion and helping the group to negotiate a common appreciation of those topics.

I'm hoping that by being a student in this context I'll gain a better understanding of how to be a teacher in this context.

I was sleeping like an angel