Disruptive Technologies

Course site for Disruptive Technologies. Exploring identity, community, & design.

Tag: Week 2

Week 2 Chris

This week’s reading was on Wenger’s study of Communities of Practice. Based on what I read I saw Communities of Practice as a shared space where members of this shared space participate in the exchange of knowledge and creation of new ideas based on individual problems. A Community of Practice is made of 3 parts mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire.

Mutual engagement is an obvious requirement. If the members of the community do not sign that unwritten contract to interact with one another a community cannot be built. I would describe joint enterprise as the synergy  of the members. I read shared repertoire as the culture of the community.

I watched this video to help me understand Community of Practice more and one thing I found really interesting was Wenger did not define wikis, blogs, or forums as Communities of Practice just merely tools. When I just started wrapping my head around Communities of Practice, I instantly thought of wikis, blogs, and forums.

I am a part of a group at my university called Computer User Digital Development Learning Environment or CUDDLE. During our CUDDLE sessions students of many different educational backgrounds come to collaborate on ideas and help each other out on personal projects. Based on the definition I understood from the reading, CUDDLE can be called a Community of Practice.
Some questions I have after reading up on Community of Practice are:

  1. At what point does a Community of Practice become more beneficial than traditional classes?
  2. Would MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course) be considered a Community if Practice?
  3. Are there different types of Communities of Practice?

Week 2: Apple iPad Seminar in Class

Week two is upon us and now is when we will really get things moving. I want to share some general thoughts on your posts and where we might want to go from here. We will reflect briefly on any lingering issues from week one and try to wrap up the idea of the Internet as a disruptor in general. This will let us set the stage for our first deep dive into our themes, starting with community. I will also introduce you to your team assignments and get you rolling on the Team Contract.

During class some people from Apple will be here to do a hands on session with us to help us get the most out of the iPads this semester. I am keenly interested in us really unpacking the affordances of the iPad as a tool to support learning and student work flow in general. I have asked Apple to focus mostly on how the iPad can support content creation of all types. In addition to the Apple team, there will be some folks here from around campus to learn a bit more about the iPad.

Week 2

Out of Class Assignments

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