Social Learning and Communities of Practice- in search of a definition

Gordon LewisBilgi UniversityIstanbul, TurkeyMay 12, 2012

Statistics, statistics, statistics• In talking about technology –

advocates love to throw around big numbers

• People love to talk about exponential change

All true, but….

• Has this data been parsed for education?

• Is social behavior immediately transferable to education context?

Technology Turmoil

• Too many tools take our eyes off the real issues– Instructional design– integration

Education and Everyday LifeEducation World Everyday Life

Analog Digital

Generic Personal

Consumption Creation

Closed Open

Students are not an audience anymoreNor are teachers in their professional

development

A few things we do know….• Change has changed– Frequency of interaction– Diversity of context– Communication is driving change

• Departure from Permanence– Dynamic self-organization– Creative destruction

• Transmission model is in decline• Student will get more of what they want and less of

what someone else believes they need

Preserve

Discardcreate

New Literacy

• The 21 century is technology-driven and technology is changing the face of literacy

– Digital (computer) literacy– Information literacy– Multi-media literacy

• F2f interaction will retain it’s unique role and must be seen as a fundamental part of any community

• However, in the case of instruction, the teacher must be really, really good , motivating, and inspiring to attract students to the classroom when so much content is available online.

Think about it- Why are you here?

From: Headrush.typepad.com

What are you building?

• Social portal?• Social add-on to an LMS?• A social community?• A learning community?• A community of practice?

The most significant barrier or challenge to adopting social media and collaborative tools in education

has been identified as a lack of strategy

Social Community

• Communities are united around a common sense of purpose and desire to learn with and from one another

• It is an instructional design issue, not a technology issue

• Communities aren’t a sum of personal pages. A friend of a friend is not really my friend.

CoP versus social networkCoP Informal Network

Purpose Learning, sharing, creating Creating communication links

Boundary The knowledge domain Extent of relationships

Connection Shared action around a problem

Personal contacts

Membership Ongoing as long as in domain

individual

Life Span As long as generates value Open-ended

Social Networks connect individualsFocus on “personal” (PLS, PLN)

CoP’s create knowledge for missionFocus on conversations

Learning Community Structure

Community

DomainLearningpartnership

Practice

What Problem am I trying to solve?

Key Social Design Questions

• Why do we exist?• What do students/teachers want from

community?• What are the roles and responsibilities?• What does daily life look like? Weekly,

Monthly?• Access and convenience (integrated/firewalls)

Expectations: 1-10-90

• 1% will create content• 10% will communicate around it• 90% will view or download it

This is normal. Compare-• Youtube videos uploaded daily: 200.000• Youtube videos watched daily: 100.000.000

Sponsor

Facilitator /Mentor

Archivist/Librarian

Technician

Core Team

Subject Matter Experts

Participants

Community Roles

More Roles

TRANSACTIONALoutsiders

PERIPHERALlurkers

OCCASIONALExperts, beginners

ACTIVELeaders and

facilitators

Orchestrated Spontaneity

• The Invisible Hand– the crucial role of the

facilitator• Calendaring

(balancing activities- flow)

• Linking online with f2f activities– This event!

COMMUNITY ACCULTURATION• Moments in the life of a community member• Back channel communication

Membership Mentorship Participation Recognition

Information Informal

Formal

WithFrom

Models of practice

Project/after-actionreviews

Case clinics

Document sharing

Collections

Learningprojects

Hot topicdiscussionsStories

Formalpracticetransfer

Visits

Invitedspeaker

Mutual benchmark

External benchmark

Broadcast inquiry

Readinggroup

Problem solving

News

Jointresponse

Boundarycollaboration

Trainingand workshops

Pointers to resources

Systematic scan

GuestsJointeventsDocumenting

practice

Field trips

Exploringideas

Eachother

1

2

7 4

3

6

5

Tips

Practice fairs

Warranting Helpdesk

Outsidesources

1. Exchanges2. Productive

inquiries3. Building shared

understanding4. Producing assets5. Creating

standards6. Formal access to

knowledge7. Visits

a great variety

Debates

Q&A Role play

Casestudies

Peerassist

Polls

Learning activities

From: Etienne Wenger

Affective Hubs

facts

Emotions

Processes

People

Projects

opinions

Success Factors in Peer-Peer LearningI need someone I am someone

Awareness Who’s out there? How do I get known?

Competence Is he/she competent?

How can I highlight my skills?

Benevolence Will he/she be willing to help?

How can I gain people’s trust?

Motivation Will I engage? Why should I help?

Access How do I connect? Do I want to be reached?

Skills Do we have structure to enable this?

Tools and Technology

What are the tools?

From: IBM

Measuring success

• Three key questions for members:

1. Did they like it?2. Did they learn3. Are they applying

their learning?

Measuring success (2)• Quality of Communication

– Meaningful interactions- quality of exchanges– Timely and meaningful feedback– Informal learning (learning from each other)– Liveliness, diversity of traffic– Contribution patterns- who is contributing?– Sustainability

• Brinkerhoff: Success Case Methodology– Identify goals– Measure data to identify successful/unsuccessful members– Conduct interviews- collect stories- identify performance factors– Share knowledge

Final Words

• Forget about things like PLE’s to start• Focus on conversations• Knowledge lies in the conversations• Harvest these conversations to create

“community memory”