CI 597 Blog

designing a COP

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:13:45 -0500

This final posting in my CI 597 synthesis is the most important in my opinion. The course readings and discussions were great starting points for discussing Web 2.0 technologies. Cole and Scott allowed us to form opinions and discuss and negotiate our meaning with our peers. But, how will we transfer this new knowledge to the creation of our own online learning environments, communities, and lesson plans? What we may not realize is that we have already started to transfer this knowledge. In our group projects in class, every group designed a module of instruction around a Web 2.0 technology that incorporated the ideas of community and identity. For instance, our TeamTweet group designed our instruction with identity having two roles. Our instruction incorporated everyone’s in-person identity and also online identity in Twitter.

How do we get started in design as we move past this semester? Wenger provides a starting point in the last two Chapters of his book, Communities of Practice. Wenger discusses four dimensions of instructional design: participation vs. reification, designed vs. emergent, local vs. global, and identification vs. negotiability. These dimensions task the designer with answering the following questions: How much reification is appropriate and necessary in learning? How can we minimize teaching and maximize learning? How can we link educational experiences to real world experiences and other content areas? How is success and failure negotiated in the design? I discuss these ideas in a posting from April 15, 2008 entitled “Designing Learning vs. Designing for Learning.” The main argument that Wenger states and I reiterate is that “learning cannot be designed, it can only be designed for” (Wenger 1998).

We must design environments and lesson plans that facilitate (i.e. allow for) learning to occur. We do this by creating environments where participants feel like they are part of a Community of Practice. They can experience, do, belong, and become. They can negotiate, develop, and share theories and ways of understanding the world. This is accomplished through mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and a shared repertoire. In creating our environment and lesson plans, we must allow for collaboration and group work, discussion, and shared goals. By providing collaboration and group work, we are facilitating social interaction and identity creation.

For anyone that is relatively new at instructional design, it is important to start with design models. One design model that I use is Bielaczyc and Collins’ learning community framework. The framework requires community growth, emergent goals, articulation-of-goals, metacognitive activity, respect for others, fail safe measures, structural dependence, depth over breadth, diverse expertise, multiple ways to participate, sharing, negotiation and a good quality of products. More on this can be found in a previous post from February 4, 2008.

The take-home point from all my posts regarding CI 597 is the following. In instruction, you must constantly look at community, identity, and design. Even with new Web 2.0 technologies, you still must go back to community, identity, and design. By accommodating for all three, you WILL design for learning and WILL create environments that allow for learning to occur.

Thank you for reading my posts this semester!

All links included in this post:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mdm392/blogs/ci597/2008/04/designing-learning-vs-designin.html
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mdm392/blogs/ci597/2008/04/revisiting-cops.html
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mdm392/blogs/ci597/2008/02/creating-communities-of-practi.html

a COPs Identity

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:10:52 -0500

In a Community of Practice (COP), there are many different levels of participation. People can be engaged members, periphery members, non-participants, etc. Participation is directly linked to identity and belonging to a community. We choose to participate and belong in certain ways and that belonging helps to create our identity in that community. Wenger's three modes of belonging further explain identity. 1. Engagement or active involvement. 2. Imagination or seeing connections in our lives through past experiences. 3. Alignment or choosing where to use our energy.

Do we have an influence on our identity? Yes! Sherry Turle describes identity as the sameness between a person and his/her persona. More on Turle's ideas can be found in the post "Neo's Internet Identity Crisis" from February 4, 2008. Etienne Wenger describes identity as negotiated through social interaction and that by yourself, you don't have an identity. More thoughts on Wenger's discussion of identity can be found in the post AND comment in "After class Identity Discussion" from April 17, 2008. We have an influence on every social interaction we are involved in, whether it be our demeanor, appearance, words, or creations.

I feel that the biggest question from CI 597 this semester dealt with one's online identity. Is it really your identity if someone is unable to see your demeanor and appearance? The answer is yes. No matter how little of a presence it is, you DO have an online presence that people associate with you. This creates your identity. More on this is found in the post and comment in "After class Identity Discussion" from April 17, 2008.

If we have a good grasp on what makes up a COP and how identity is created and formed, can we design a COP? The answer will come in my next posting, "designing a COP."

All links used in this post:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mdm392/blogs/ci597/2008/04/finding-identity-and-networkin.html
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mdm392/blogs/ci597/2008/02/neos-internet-identity-crisis.html
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mdm392/blogs/ci597/2008/04/after-class-identity-discussio.html

re-Visiting COPs

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:32:00 -0500

For my final synthesis of the three themes in CI 597, I want to revisit my first thoughts of Communities of Practice. This final synthesis is broken into three posts, entitled "re-Visiting COPs," "a COPs Identity," and "designing a COP." All posts are related to Communities of Practice (COPs).

This post starts with an analysis of a previous post from February 4, 2008. In this post "creating Communities of Practice," I explain that learning in COPs is broken into meaning, practice, community, and identity. Learning occurs through experience, doing, belonging, and becoming. These Communities of Practice exist because we are able to negotiate, develop, and share our theories and ways of understanding the world. Etienne Wenger explains that these communities include both participation and reification. These ideas can be found on a previous post from February 11, 2008 entitled "Community of Practice revisited."

Participation and reification contribute to the discontinuity of a boundary or help to create a boundary. The boundary allows for negotiation of meaning through community interconnectedness with other COPs. In the Web 2.0 world, you can easily negotiate meaning with users anywhere in the world through boundaries. More on this can be found on a previous post from February 18, 2008 entitled "Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? An analysis of COPs in the Web 2.0 world"

Constellations of Practice are the combination of many different Communities of Practice. Every time we join a new COP, we are adding an addition to our Constellation. We ARE drawing our own constellations (of practice) throughout our lives.

What does this all mean in context with Web 2.0 technology? The answer is simple. We can create COPs using Web 2.0 technologies as reification objects or as boundary objects. However, in order to create these COPs, we must know and understand the identity of the participants. Thus, my next posting will be "a COPs Identity."

All links used in this post:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mdm392/blogs/ci597/2008/02/creating-communities-of-practi.html
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mdm392/blogs/ci597/2008/02/community-of-practice-revisite.html
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mdm392/blogs/ci597/2008/02/whatcha-gonna-do-when-they-com.html
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mdm392/blogs/ci597/2008/02/wengers-constellations.html

After Class Identity Discussion

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:25:16 -0500

After class today, a few of us hung around for an hour and discussed ci597 and Wenger. We ended class by saying that according to Wenger, identity is negotiated through social interaction and that by yourself, you don't have an identity.

However...
1. What if you never interact with anyone? The extreme case: What if you grow up in the jungle and your only social interaction is with animals. Do you not have an identity? Is interacting with animals considered social interaction?

Another idea...
2. The point was made that even if you choose not to engage in a community, your identity is still changed because of that choice. I can see how in some cases your identity would in fact change by making that choice. But I don't agree that it always changes. If I act a certain way before I am introduced to a community and choose not to engage in that community because of those actions, then my Identity has not changed. What has changed is the community's perception of myself. They label me for choosing not to engage in the community but that label has not changed my identity and who I am. The only thing that's changes is their perception of me.

Feel free to respond with pros or cons to our/my ideas. Thanks to those that hung around after class; it was a great conversation.

Designing learning vs. Designing for learning

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:15:00 -0500

"Learning cannot be designed, it can only be designed for." ~E. Wenger

Over the last few weeks we have talked about learning with respect to communities of practice, trajectories of participation, emergent structures, boundaries, social power, engagement, alignment, and identity. We have tied in online communities, online identities, and Web 2.0 technologies to our discussions.

As we start the final Chapters of Wenger's Communities of Practice, we have one last piece of the puzzle to ponder and discuss: design. Learning can and should also be discussed with design.

Although, "one cannot design the practices that will emerge.. the identities that will be constructed.... the alignment of energies.. or even the meaning and/or learning," one can design for instruction that will lead to the occurrence of these practices in some form (Wenger 1998).

Wenger states that there are four dimensions in instructional design. Participation vs. reification, designed vs. emergent, local vs. global, and identification vs. negotiability. These dimensions present a give and take relationship where the following questions arise: How much reification is appropriate and necessary in learning? How can we minimize teaching and maximize learning? How can we link educational experiences to real world experiences and other content areas? How is success and failure negotiated in the design?

There are so many different questions that we can answer and prepare for in our instructional design, and yet, we will never be able to completely design the learning. For example, in our CI 597C: Disruptive Technologies course this semester, we never could have guessed that Twitter would be one of the most used technologies. In fact, the other members of the Twitter group and I (teamtweet) thought that Twitter was a bad choice of topic at first. Twitter soon became THE technology of use in CI 597C and learning did occur. The key was that our instructors Scott and Cole designed the course FOR learning. They did not know what would be learned or the alignment of energies to certain technologies.

At the end of the day, an instructional designer must be able to answer the question, Did I try to design the learning or instead, did I design for learning? If the answer was FOR learning, then the instructional designer can sleep well that night knowing that authentic (i.e. real) learning will occur.

Finding Identity and Networking, same thing?

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:48:00 -0500

As the semester draws to an end and my peers (from CI597) and I go our separate ways, I find that our identity is forever changed. Throughout this semester, we have actively been involved in discussion and group work. We have taken past experiences and related them to concepts and theories from class. We have decided how and when to use our energy to enhance class discussion and group projects. We have participated in all three of Wenger’s modes of belonging. In "Communities of Practice", Etienne Wenger discusses three modes of belonging that form one's identity. 1. Engagement or active involvement. 2. Imagination or seeing connections in our lives through past experiences. 3. Alignment or choosing where to use our energy (1998).

Before I get to my conjecture that identity and networking are the same thing, I want to side step and talk about alignment:

Alignment is the mode that most interests me. How do I choose to use my energy? For the past 48 hours I have spent about 20 of them making a project for a workshop I am giving this Wednesday.   The project was not for any of my classes, however, it still was high on my priority list. Why? Well, I wanted to create a database web-application that would help my peers learn about databases and want to invest their energy in the same way. Also, it was fun and challenging. I find that these two qualities of a project often provide for the best learning environments. If the project was not as fun as I thought it was, I am certain I instead would have only spent half the amount of time on it. Also, if it was not at first challenging, there would not have been as much personal satisfaction at the end of completing it. A sample of the project is available at http://workshop.msw-is.com/teacherSiteOnLine.html. A few of the qualities of alignment that Wenger discusses are finding one's view or common ground, being a boundary for communities, and developing a focus (1998). When I present my workshop on Wednesday on Databases, I will become a boundary between the technical side of computer databases and the educational goals and knowledge of the participants. BTW, Anyone reading this is welcome to attend: Keller 313, 4/9/2008, @ 1-3 P.M. Email me at mrook@psu.edu to RSVP.

Wenger says that identity is formed through identification (choice) and negotiability (adoption).   We choose to engage ourselves with and meet certain people but we also negotiate our identities in many different communities. Others choose to interact with us and help us form an identity in our communities. This sounds a lot like networking. I will define networking as engaging others to advance our career. Finding an identity is not much different. Wenger points out that power is a part of finding identity. Identity is in a way social empowerment. By choosing to engage others in conversation and brokering and being boundaries across learning communities, we are forming our identity AND networking.

Why is my identity forever changed after leaving CI597? I have formed relationships with others involved in CI597 that will lead to my involvement in other communities (Gaming Commons with Bart Pursel), social events (enjoying trivia night at Otto's with my group), and research projects (PSU's ePortfolio).

Although I initially joined the CI597 learning communities for acquisiition of knowledge, I find that with an open mind and alignment of energy, I have found opportunities for creation of knowledge that have far exceeded my expectations. Thank you CI597 teachers, peers.

e-Portfolios and Mash-Ups of our Identity

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:55:13 -0500

During the poster session at the TLT Symposium this past Saturday, I had the chance to talk with Glenn Johnson, the Project Manager of Penn State's e-Portfolio Initiative. I had previously attended one of Mr. Johnson's training sessions last semester so I was familiar with the e-Portfolio Initiative. The initiative provides students with help in creating their own portfolio. Although there is no set template, students can model their portfolio off of other sample portfolios.

I have had previous experience in creating an e-Portfolio. As a Masters student at The College of New Jersey in 2005, I created an e-Portfolio for my expertise in Mathematics and Computer Science Education. I coded in html using Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Flash to bring together images and video for an interactive page. I was very happy with the site but it was what we would call web 1.0 or 1.1 technologies.

At the poster session, I was interested in how e-Portfolios could be combined with web 2.0 technologies, so I engaged Mr. Johnson in conversation. Mr. Johnson suggested going away from the normal old e-portfolio and instead using blogs@psu.edu or similar technologies to form an electronic portfolio.

This brings me to my idea for further research. I would like to take Mr. Johnson's ideas of combining e-Portfolios and web 2.0 technologies and go one step further. In the near future, I would like to create an e-Portfolio system (SaaS) that serves as a Mash-Up of our Identity on the internet. Instead of just using a blog or other tool as an e-Portfolio, I would like to make a Mash-Up of all the communities, blogs, and technologies that we are involved in on the internet. In other words, I would like to create an application that is very similar to Pownce but with the specific goal of using it as an e-Portfolio. For those that do not know, Pownce puts links to users many accounts on one page. On my Pownce page, I have a link to my facebook, myspace, flickr, aim messenger, msn messenger, and twitter accounts.

My research question would be to find out if students (who use this new e-Portfolio Mash-Up) are less likely to post incriminating pictures and vulgar text or blog posts. I think this research would be significant because it could provide a start of responsible social networking and web 2.0 living. In this context, responsible = fun yet smart, appropriate, and professional.

Meeting Roy Pea and discussing the CELF initiative

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:12:17 -0500

At the AERA conference in NYC last week, Dr. Roy Pea spoke as the Keynote speaker for the Technology as an Agent for Change in Teaching and Learning (TACTL) Special Interest Group. I was very interested in attending for a few reasons. First, we have already read Roy Pea's "Distributed Intelligence" in class and I wanted to meet the author. Also, the title of his presentation "Learning Environments Transformed" caught my attention and seemed very interesting. Although it was nice shaking his hand and introducing myself after his presentation, I enjoyed listening to his ideas the most.

In the presentation, Pea discussed the properties of emerging learning environments. They are 1. fast growing as part of a participatory culture, 2. created as Software as a Service (SaaS), 3. social networks, 4. search engines, 5. gaming worlds, and 6. pervasive (i.e. ubiquitous) and mobile. He also discussed an initiative that he helped put together for the National Science Foundation. The initiative entitled "Cyberinfrastructure for Education and Learning for the Future: A Vision and Research Agenda" (CELF) was created to find out where we need to be (as educators) in this new web 2.0 rich world.

You can find the CELF initiative at http://www.cra.org/reports/cyberinfrastructure.pdf. In the next few paragraphs, I want to discuss a few of the words in the Chapter entitled "Communities of Learning" and relate it to CI 597.

"Cyberinfrastructure will make it possible for students in school settings to be more directly engaged with life beyond the classroom, and to observe and interact with communities of professionals and others who develop products and results that matter, both within and outside of their communities."

This is already evident in our class' use of Twitter outside of the classroom walls. At the TLT Symposium, our class met with a community of professionals. Twitter will enable us to stay in touch with these professionals and learn more from them long after the symposium.

"Virtual communities of learning can help address many of the issues raised about the need to retain qualified and talented teachers and support them in their professional practice. They can provide personal support as well as access to professionally interesting conversations and resources; connections to practicing scientists and education researchers; and more opportunities for advancement than the local context often can offer."

Online communities are available that allow teachers to share resources. Along with social networks and blogs, these online communities also provide easy access to conversations with others in their field. Our class blogs and podcasts have created many conversations that would have never happened if we kept those conversations inside the classroom walls.

I am providing the end of the Chapter below in the hope that it will help foster future research questions for anyone reading this. I am interested in a few of the challenges and providing some research in the future to address them. Specifically, I am interested in providing research for the challenge of community and member feedback.

"CELF research challenges include:
• Managing the need for large-scale, robust production systems upon which practitioners can rely and researchers can do research, coupled with the ongoing need for innovative experiments.
• Developing shared standards and specifications to enable the collection and analysis of data about communities of learning.
• Understanding and planning for educating teacher practitioners to use Cyberinfrastructure for learning collaboratively and across groups.
• Understanding the affordances of the virtual context for individuals and groups to develop multiple competencies and various senses of belonging that they and others can manage to construct, and adapt the learning environments to their needs.
• Understanding how social capital influences the participation of different types of learners and, in turn, how various forms of participation impact learning.
• Identifying and learning to assess criteria for engagement and success within communities of learning. Integrating across different forms of assessment data, such as interviews and observation, discourse and conversation analysis, log analysis, and performance evaluations.
• Developing effective community feedback mechanisms for “reading” member engagement and perspectives and facilitating various forms of decision making.
• Understanding how access, availability, and ubiquity affect the development of Communities of Learners enabled by CELF.
• Understanding how pedagogical content knowledge and related principles should influence the design of infrastructures to support communities of learning.
• Understanding how to support cross-project collaboration and fertilization. Understanding how Cyberinfrastructure can bridge projects both within and across traditional disciplines. Understanding how projects move from pilots to large-scale efforts and from grant-funded to sustainable.
• Understanding the global nature of Cyberinfrastructure. Although the Internet and much of industry are already internationally oriented, education in the United States is remarkably parochial. Cyberinfrastructure can help bridge learners across countries (pilots, and small-scale individual efforts) and make it possible (time zones notwithstanding) for class projects to consist of team members worldwide, and to bring in experts from around the world."

Career Planning using the Strategy of Non-Participation

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:55:30 -0500

Asking all Educators:
Have you ever felt like you did not want to write those lesson plans on Sunday night? Have you ever let procrastination get the best of you? Have you ever stopped to consider how nice it would be to leave work and not have to spend any more (mental and/or physical) time on your work?

You, my friends, are strategizing your non-participation. In Chapter 7 of "Communities of Practice," Etienne Wenger presents the Strategy of Non-Participation as a form of identity. He states that many individuals "see their identity mainly outside their job as 'I don't want it to be, like, my life is my job'" (Wenger 1998).   These people don't want their work lives to invade their personal lives.

Is there a solution in education? Yes, if you consider the alternatives. In my opinion, teaching is one of the more enjoyable and rewarding jobs one can hold. In order to be a teacher, you constantly need to learn and stay up with the times and adequately prepare and plan your classes. With teaching comes the responsibility of planning and participation. What then is the solution? Well, have you ever considered a job that allows for non-participation? Have you worked at a job where the work becomes tedious and boring and you look forward to your days of non-participation?   The solution is a change of strategy and ideology. Instead of strategizing your non-participation, start to strategize your participation. Value and treasure the participation that teaching requires because this participation keeps your work fresh and fun. Also, change your attitude about non-participation. Although non-participation looks good now (the grass is always greener on the other side), always remember that while you need to do lesson plans and study-up on the next new web 2.0. technology (in anticipation for your next day of work that you are looking forward to), your friends are dreading that job that they need to wake up at 6 a.m. for.

Knowing the benefits of participation and the negative side to the strategy of non-participation, I feel I am more likely to encourage my students to follow careers of participation.

Identity in the Current vs. Future Classroom

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:50:11 -0500

According to Wenger's "Communities of Practice," identity in practice can be described using the following six characteristics: 1. lived 2. negotiated 3. social 4. a learning process 5. nexus and 6. local-global interplay (Wenger 1998). In the following post, I will analyze each characteristic with respect to our current vs. (my idea of our) future classroom.

First, I will need to define current and future classrooms. Current classrooms are classrooms that are in the current standards movement. The classroom walls serve as the community space. Social networks and instant messaging tools are prevalent among students but not used in the classroom or if they are, not to their full potential. The internet allows for much research and knowledge but is not the first place to find knowledge. Teachers are the leaders of the classroom and engage their students in activities. Also, in the K-12 curriculum, many but not all classroom teachers teach to the (high-stake) test. Future classrooms are classrooms that may still be in the standards movement, but allow for more authentic and alternative assessment. Social networks and instant messaging tools are used to engage students in the classroom and beyond. There are no classroom walls. The classroom space exists as a meeting place. The teachers are guides and motivators. The internet is the main source of knowledge and thus, students are trained at a much earlier age to evaluate internet sources and information.

1. Lived = an experience that involves both participation and reification.
In the current classroom, identity is formed through experience within the school walls. In the future classroom, identity is now also formed through experience in class chat rooms, discussion boards, blogs, and other web 2.0. technologies outside the classroom walls. Through the internet, students interact with and learn from other students and teachers around the world instead of just students in their local communities.   These other students and teachers can be considered periphery members of the class.

2. Negotiated = identity is ongoing and pervasive.
Identity is ongoing within both the current classroom and future classroom. The only difference here is that identity is negotiated among members of the classroom in the current system. In the future system, identity is negotiated also among periphery members only accessible through the internet.

3. Social = identity a fundamentally social character.
Identity is shaped by the familiar social experiences within the community.   Similar to 2, here the only difference is in the periphery members that also contribute to identity.

4. a Learning Process = incorporates both past and future into the meaning of the present.
In our current classrooms, students are initially set on an inbound trajectory (of identity) in order to attain full membership in the learning community. However, the overarching trajectory for a student is an outbound trajectory. Students are constantly set to move on to the next stage of their schooling. From Pre-K to grammar school to high school to college to graduate school or professional work. Throughout this process, students are given paradigmatic trajectories or models to follow. For instance, a student that wants to be a college professor will have a very different trajectory than one that wants to be an auto mechanic.   In our future classrooms, students can more easily interact and follow actual college professors and auto mechanics. There is no longer a sense of reading about trajectories in a book. Students can actually talk to professionals and learn from their successes and failures on a personal level.

5. Nexus = combines multiple forms of membership through a process of reconciliation across boundaries of practice.
The nexus in the current classroom system revolves around a student's many different classes, extracurricular activities, jobs, friendships, relationships, and family life. In the future classroom, the nexus also revolves around a student's online identity.

6. Local-Global Interplay = neither narrowly local to activities nor abstractly global.
The current classroom system enables a local-global interplay that is skewed to the local end. Students learn how to exist in their local school and how their classroom fits into the broader scheme of things. In the future classroom system, students will exist in their local school and also in their online system. They will become brokers of knowledge between students half-way across the world. The future classroom system will enable a local-global interplay that is more skewed to the global end.

Technology as more than a tool

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:43:32 -0500

I have always viewed technology only as a "tool" that could assist in education and learning. Bonni Nardi and Vicki O'Day suggest that we should go past this ideology and view technology as a tool, text, system and/or ecology. In terms of text, technology is seen as "a form of communication, a cattier of meaning that may be reinterpreted as the technology passes through different social situations" (Nardi & O'Day 1999). Technology as a system allows for technology to influence our lives through a systematic perspective. We often try to predict and steer the results of innovation. We need to understand that sometimes technology cannot be controlled. Technological change is hard to understand because it is very large-scale and distributed in our society. Nardi and O'Day use pollution to explain this complexity. Pollution results from cars, buses, barbecues, manufacturing plants and we don't have a plan that addresses all of these technologies.

What does this mean to us as educators and instructional technology innovators? I feel that technology advances will only come if we are open to the possibilities of technology. In other words, we can't limit our views of technology. We can't be constrained by viewing technology as only a tool and look more into how it can be used as text, system, and ecology. If we follow these ideas, we will see potential and productive uses of technology and will be change-agents in our communities.

One such example is using facebook. I have previously only viewed facebook as a tool for education practices. However, how can facebook affect communication, our educational perspectives, or our education ecology outlook? This has interesting implications... and i'm not sure where it can go.

Wenger's Constellations

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:20:04 -0500

"It was just another night with the sun set and the moon rise not so far behind. To give us just enough light to lay down underneath the stars. Listen to papa's translations of the stories across the sky. We drew our own constellations." -Jack Johnson

Upon reading Chapter 5 and Coda 1 of Etienne Wenger's "Communities of Practice," I am finally able to say the readings are making sense and I can answer a lot of the questions that I had previously about communities of practice.

Wenger introduces Constellations of Practice. These constellations are groupings of objects, in this case individual communities of practice. One of the questions I have had up to this point was: Wouldn't there be many communities of practice and each community of practice would have smaller communities of practice within it? The answer is that there are many communities of practice that make up not a bigger community of practice, but rather, a constellation of practice. These constellations of practice are not considered communities of practice because they overlook the "multiplicity and disconnectedness of the perspectives involved" (Wenger 1998).

A second question that I have had for a long time was: Can computers be considered members of a community of practice because they are able to interact with other members of a community (i.e. search engines)? The answer is that computers are NOT considered members of a community because computers lack an understanding of meaning. They cannot mutually engage with other members because they lack an understanding of meaning, they cannot understand the community's enterprise because of the same lack of meaning, and they cannot negotiate the repertoire also because of this lack of meaning.

The third question I have had throughout this entire process has also been cleared up. With the development of online COPs and member's splitting their identities, isn't there a lack of member engagement in their real lives? Yes, Wenger explains that the "scope of engagement is not so much expanding as it is a series of trade-offs between forms of complexity" (1998). So, as we enter into more and more online communities, our engagement with our original community (family) is not as complex as it once was. I am interested to see what the implications are in terms of social interaction in the next 50 years.

Bringing this back to Constellations and the Jack Johnson song I quoted at the beginning of this post, we are involved in many different communities of practice. All of these communities of practice can be combined to form our own individual constellation of practice. We ARE drawing our own constellations (of practice).

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? An analysis of COPs in the Web 2.0 world

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:36:34 -0500

COPs or Communities of practice are defined as a "shared history of learning" and gain meaning through participation and reification (Wenger 1998). Participation and reification have dual modes of existence in time, remembering and forgetting, and continuity and discontinuity. You use participation to get past "bureaucratic rigidities" of policies and you use reification to "combat forces of partiality that can bias politics of participation" (1998). The evolution of COPs involves the politics of both participation and reification. Participation and reification contribute to the discontinuity of a boundary or help to create a boundary. What is a boundary? A boundary object is any "artifact, document, term, concept, or other form of reification around which communities of practice can organize their interconnections" (1998). Boundary objects allow for the negotiation of meaning in a community of practice.

In the Web 2.0 world, members negotiate meaning with communities of practice through many technologies including but not limited to video sharing sites, podcasts, blogs, wikis, online learning communities, online social networks, online news feeds, multi-user domains (MUDs), and massively multi-player online role playing games (MMORPGs). All of these Web 2.0 technologies allow for communities of practice to organize their interconnections. They can be considered "boundary objects" that Wenger refers to.

The difference between these "boundary objects" and the ones we see in real life are that the Web 2.0 objects allow members to negotiate meaning in a system with a very different sense of identity, community, and design. Members can be whoever they want to be; they are no longer constrained by their physical appearance or demeanor. The community is no longer a community that exists in the neighborhood. You can negotiate meaning with users anywhere in the world. The design process is changing too. Our online COPs are dynamic and changing. In order to create online COPs, instructional designers must consider peripheral roles in the community. The number of peripheries in a community is no longer limited by location or time.

As Web 2.0 technologies become increasingly popular and take their new roles as "boundary objects," we are going to see the world change. Unless you live under a rock or in a bubble, your daily routine will soon change as these technologies take over. So in borrowing from the theme song from "Bad Boys," whatcha gonna do? whatcha gonna do when they (Web 2.0 technologies) come for you?

Dvorak Keyboard diffusion rejection... will it happen with Web 2.0?

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:45:00 -0500

Created in 1932, the Dvorak Keyboard was meant to replace the current QWERTY system. The Dvorak Keyboard system was superior to the QWERTY system yet, it has not caught on as one would have thought it would. Although the Dvorak Keyboard has caught on in some work environments (especially with computer programmers), it is still not as widely used and accepted as the QWERTY system. The reason? According to Everett Rogers, the Dvorak Keyboard was a failed diffusion.

Rogers in "Diffusion of Innovations" provides an outline for diffusion and dissemination. A diffusion occurs when an innovation is communicated through channels and adopted over time into a social system. A dissemination is a diffusion that is directed and managed. When providing a diffusion of an innovation, one must think critically about how the innovation, communication channels, time, and social system will affect the adoption of the innovation. If an innovation is rejected, it usually can be traced back to a problem with one of these four categories. With the Dvorak Keyboard, the manufacturers, sales outlets, typing teachers, and typists contributed to the slow diffusion of the keyboard system. They are considered "laggards" because they refused to use the system. They made a decision to not sell keyboards with the Dvorak Keyboard. Because such a small percentage of the population made the decision for all of the consumers, it is considered an authority innovation decision.

As we discuss Web 2.0 technologies and how we can incorporate them into the classroom, the following questions come to my mind: Will the Dvorak Keyboard diffusion rejection happen again? Will there be a Web 2.0 technology that will take forever to adopt because K-12 school administrators refuse to adopt it?

In many innovation decisions, school administrators play similar roles to what the manufacturers and sales outlets did for the Dvorak Keyboard. In terms of the K-12 school community, the social system is defined by the decisions that a small percentage of the community makes. School administrators make authority innovation decisions all the time. Because of this fact, I believe that the answer to the above questions is yes. I can only make a guess as to which technologies will take a long time to adopt. Based on the fact that many internet sites are still not available in classrooms, I think any technology that is dependent on the web (social networks, multi-user domains, and massively multi-player online role playing games, etc.) will not make an impact on education for many many years. Your thoughts?

Community of Practice revisited

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:08:11 -0500

According to Wenger, "the term practice is sometimes used as an antonym for theory, ideas, ideals, or talk. However, (Wenger's) use of the term does not reflect a dichotomy between the practical and the theoretical, ideals and reality, or talking and doing. Communities of practice include all of these even if there are sometimes discrepancies between what we say and what we do, what we aspire to and what we settle for, what we know and what we can manifest. We all have our own theories and ways of understanding the world, and our communities of practice are places where we develop, negotiate, and share them."

A community involves participation and reification. Participation refers to membership and interaction of the community. Reification refers to the instrument(s) that allow for negotiation and the bringing together of the community. Practice can become a source of community cohesiveness through "mutual engagement, a joint enterprise, and/or a shared repertoire" (Wenger 1998).

Wenger provides a framework that helps to define community, identity and design with disruptive technologies. In today's society, the community is often a virtual community. Wenger suggests that in our communities, we "develop, negotiate, and share" our theories and ideas. The beauty of virtual communities is that there are millions of them. If we cannot find a community in which to share all of our ideas, we can find others or create a new one. These communities become communities of practice when we can negotiate and converse with others in the community for a purpose. This purpose is usually defined as "mutual engagement, joint enterprise or a shared repertoire." The identity of the community is also usually defined by one of these three terms. For instance, a discussion board that has a shared repertoire of discussing the Superbowl Champion NY Giants is often defined by this shared repertoire.

By knowing what a community of practice is and why it exists, we can modify our design practices and define what design is necessary to create future communities of practice. Disruptive technologies such as computers, cell phones, social networks, or negotiation widgets are often the reification instruments in these virtual communities of practice.