CoP's harder to find than I thought.

I began this week on the search for a Community of Practice. For a project in one of my EdTech graduate courses, we must "join or at least visit a community of practice (CoP).  During this visit, you will act as an ethnographer.  You will record photos or video and notes, and edit them into a (<5 min) multimedia presentation that illustrates the key components of a CoP." The trick here is this: "The CoP you choose should be:

Something you don’t already know, belong to, or participate in.

A real, in person CoP.  No online CoPs for this.

A legitimate CoP according to the standards in Wenger

Approved by me before you do your research."

That third one down, "according to standards in Wenger," that’s the hard one. I searched my mind first, what communities of practice do I know? Theatre! I know many people involved in theatre, and we meet at least once a month a talk shop. The group is very informal, go out for lunch when someone sends a text, and gab about the local theatre scene, directors, talk to each other about the shows we were in and how they could have been improved etc etc. Literally a perfect example of a CoP! Then it hit me…"Something you don’t already know, belong to, or participate in." Well, that puts a damper on things. I began thinking about any other CoP's I could come up with, and everyone I thought of was not truly a CoP according to Wengers standards.

What hit me was this: CoP's in Wengers standards are hard to come by. Most of these exist on the internet know in forums and sites such as private wiki's. If and when there is a physical meeting of individuals, there tends to be some sort of membership involved.

The idea of a CoP still exists, only perhaps, on smaller scales. These could be lunch groups that have formed via theatre relationships, or students who meet and talk about homework every week. For larger groups, they have moved to the internet to share information and advice.

During these thoughts, I had a revelation. The maker culture! This culture of DIY doers, hackers, tinkerers, tend to meet up and work on projects together. They are usually individuals who belong to similar practices, and share a domain. A perfect example of a CoP, and I found one! Fresno Ideaworks. More info to come of course, as soon as they email me back and let me know they will let me film them.

Oh Boy, lets hope this works.

Bad Boys (theme from CoP’s*).

*CoP’s in this instance means ‘Communities of Practice.

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Once again I was doing some light reading over the past week, this time the book was Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity by Etienne Wenger. (Side note, I am happy for the use of the Oxford comma. But every once in awhile I would like to see things written with the Walken comma ie. Communities, of Practice…)

The four premises in a community of practice (CoP) are

• We are social beings - Key word "Social"
• Knowledge is a matter of competence with respect to valued enterprise. - Key words "Valued enterprise"
• Knowledge is a matter of participating in the pursuit of such enterprises. - Key word "participating"
• Meaning is ultimately what learning is to produce. - Key word "Meaning"

Without writing an essay on what all of this means, I am going to attempt to sum it up in the easiest way I can. A community of practice is a number of individuals tied together in a non-formal way, all working towards or within the same frame of thought. An example of a community of practice would be doctors, or to be more specific, say hip surgeons. Hip surgeons all have a common set of knowledge and are working towards more knowledge or skill in the work of hip surgery. Each of these individuals are actively involved in the world of hip surgery. These individuals do not meet together, or get together for BBQ's, nor do they join a hip surgeon club, however each of them share a common practice. Within this community, there is a sharing of knowledge and resources. While this is not required, it tends to happen organically.

The idea of a community of practice got me thinking about areas of my life in which a community of practice should be, but isn't. Outside of the chocolate industry I am also actively involved in theatre, video production, and education. While there is a thriving CoP in education and theatre, there is little to be said about video production. From my experience, individuals involved in video production are not as open to sharing knowledge or resources as one might hope. I think much of this has to do with the highly competitive nature of making a living with video production. At one point in time (not too long ago) few people were considered professional video producers. Few could afford a high-end camera and editing gear, now it is a much different story. The days of the select few owning professional video gear are over! Everybody has professional video equipment and editing software in their mobile phone. This, in a way, has broken the coherence that must exist within a CoP. Wenger states that learning in practice involves evolving forms of mutual engagement, and I do not see this nearly as clearly as I do within the other areas of my life.

There are indeed areas within the video production world where shared engagement takes place. I do not want people to think I am missing that. Many video production companies come together to create a shared project, and a place such as the Community Media Access Collaborative brings students and professionals together every day. However these are formed groups working on a project, and that directly excludes them from being a CoP.

A change is happening within the video production world, much of it has to do with the fast pace of innovation (HEY! Now that’s a CoP I could talk about!), I can only hope that the individuals involved in this practice would begin to share knowledge. Maybe they already are, and I just haven't found my way into the community hmmm. Either way, that’s fine with me.

Resources:

Wenger, Etienne. (1999).  Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity

-m

Projects and the mistakes we make.

“I hope I remember everything," said Toni.

"You won't," said Trapp. "That's how you learn. But after you make the same mistake one, or two, or five times, you'll eventually get it. And then you'll make new mistakes.”

― Louis Sachar, The Cardturner: A Novel about a King, a Queen, and a Joker

This quote from Louis Sachar (my favorite author as a youngin') came to mind this last week. As I am reading Seymour Paperts book on learning theory, Mindstorms, it got me thinking about how I learn, the struggles I had along the way and how formed my teaching style.

Papert suggests that the greatest way to learn a subject such as math, would be through computer technology. That by utilizing computers, the student no longer gets taught math in the typical sense, but instead, through interaction and "living" math, they absorb the knowledge and develop a more complete understanding. While Papert goes further into detail, the initial idea is what piqued my interest. That initial idea is what first brought the eternal wisdom of Luis Sachar to mind.

I have always been someone who learns by doing. While a teacher can talk my head off, or I can read until my eyes go dry, I will never truly grasp a new idea until I am tasked to live it. At Fresno State I teach a few courses, one of which is an Intro to Media Production course. On the surface it may seem like my students are learning software, how to operate a camera, and so on, however what I am truly imparting on my class is the greater skill of how to tell a story. My class heavily relies on computers and software such as Premiere Pro, Photoshop and Audacity, to edit and create. By using these programs the students are learning how to operate the software, and all the ins and outs of similar software. More importantly, by using the computer software, they are learning how craft a well told story.

When the programs are updated, when the technology becomes obsolete, the students may not fully understand how to use the new software, but they will always comprehend how to engage an audience with a well thought out narrative with structure and personality.

I could spend the entire semester talking to my class about structuring a story. I could lecture day after day on exposition, theme, plot, style, tone and so on, but I tend to believe what Papert claims, that learning by experience with the topics is far superior. Letting students play, providing feedback , and encouraging "debugging" is the way to go.

I look at the 2 most recent projects I have assigned my students, a photo essay, and an audio project. We spend much of the class time editing on computers. But they are editing to learn a bigger and more important idea. While the production quality of these projects may not be that of Spielberg or Scorsese, the storytelling technique, the ability to self edit, the ability to understand what is and is not important, improves drastically throughout the span of the class. With this technique mistakes happen. Lots of mistakes! The first project is typically a mess, but each sequential project gets better and better.

My students will never remember everything I say, but hopefully through the projects and the mistakes they make on these projects, they "will eventually get it."

-m

Hot Topics in EdTech: Interview and Research Summary

For my Intro To EdTech course at FPU I conducted an interview with Monica Strickland of Learn4Life Schools about the current "Hot Topics" in the EdTech world. The paper below includes a summary of the interview, as well as some research into the three most important topics Monica touched on. [scribd id=285834069 key=key-E9QpKBKMGg288s9kNGzb mode=scroll]