Communities of Practice

Griff Richards, PhDManager, Educational Technology

and Learning Resources

ACEP, Nairobi, 15 November 2013

KEY IDEAS1. No one knows as much as everyone

2. The currency of a community is its shared resources and knowledge

3. A community supports shared goals

4. You can belong to many communities

5. Communities have a life cycle

XeroX Copier Repairmen(Jean Lave & Etienne Wenger)

• Morning coffee meetings• Share client stories• Share technical trouble-shooting

1. Informal structure2. Removes worker isolation3. Promotes social cohesion4. Both social and task focused

Communities are important

• They connect people• They provide a shared context• Enable dialogue• Stimulate learning• Capture & share knowledge• Encourage collaboration• Help people organize• Generate new knowledge

THE LIFE CYCLE

VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES

Balance different communications methods to meet the needs of the members

VIRTUAL COMMUNITIESRelationships Learning Action Knowledge

Leaders

Technical structures

Members

Canada

60oN

49oN

60oN

49oN

Distance LearningIn Alberta-North-DE Consortium of six colleges and Athabasca University.

Population 1M people but .9M in cities, andonly 42,000 above60 N Latitude.

60oN

49oN

Distance LearningIn Alberta-North

Ethiopia

Alberta-North area

-Sparse population

-51% aboriginal

-85 Community Access Points to internet

NORTHERN LEARNING CENTRES

• Clustering of formal learners• Mentoring by elders and leaders• Communities of informal learning• Scaffold internet skills for e-commerce, e-

government and e-health• Coordinators / technical assistants

VIRTUAL COMMUNITIESRelationships Learning Action Knowledge

Technical structures

SkypeE-mail

F2F & Elluminate calls

Sub-group forumsCalendaring

Repository

Even with limited bandwidth the core of the community support structure is communications to support relationships, work and planning collaborations.

VIRTUAL COMMUNITIESRelationships

Learning Action Knowledge

Leaders ? ? ? ?

Technical structures

SkypeMoodle Forum

F2F & OnlineWorkshopsElluminate

Community Marketing &LearnerSupport Notes

File storage

Members ? ? ? ?

Different tools for different community roles

Team Chat: Your ODeL Community1. What communities of practice do you belong?2. How do they help you with your practice?3. Are they growing or slowing? 4. How could a community of practice help launch

ODeL at your institution?5. What technology tools would you use?

REFERENCES

. Cultivating communities of Practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Boston:Harvard Business School Press.

Wenger, E., McDermott, R. & Snyder, W. (2002)

. Community of Practice Design Guide: A step-by-step guide for designing & cultivating communities of practice in higher education.

(http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/nli0531.pdf) Cambridge, D., Kaplan, S. & Suter, V. (2005)

SOME COMMUNITIES?• Open u of sudan – DE community

• TESSA• AVU• MALI – comm pratice open and distance

ALSO a community for multimedia learning• Facebook