In the words of Robin Yap and Joost Robben, two leading researchers in social learning,
“The social network society is upon us”[1]
(Robben, Yap 2010). It is time, in other words, to address the business need for on-going training and knowledge development by incorporating social learning technologies to support stronger relationships between business and IT stakeholders in order to contribute to the development of social and knowledge capital across the organization.
Given that education is central to any Community of Practice, it’s important to take a close look at how members share and construct knowledge. Understanding the theory beneath effective instructional design helps to understand why some models work well while others fail dismally.
Setting up an on-line learning environment to support the growth of a Community of Practice can be expensive and shouldn’t be entered into without an understanding of the organizations overall e-learning strategy. Two key components of this strategy will be learning theory and supporting technologies.
There are many learning theories that can be used as a starting point to build a solid foundation for a Community of Practice (CoP) educational model. The guiding focus should be on an andragogical model made up of complimentary established theories which may include problem based learning, active learning, constructivism, and constructionism, to name just a few.
To ensure technology is selected objectively based on the unique requirements of the community the strategy should incorporate comprehensive and tailored evaluation rubrics. Refer to the technology page for a listing of some supporting technologies.
Leveraging Social Media for CoP Instructional Designs
Here’s a quick CoP overview illustrated using free social media technology and featuring a video of a leading theorist, Etienne Wenger.
Exploring Communities of Practice on Prezi
Here’s a more indepth presentation using the more standard Microsoft PowerPoint published to YouTube:
Why Blog?
Sample Courses in the Moodle Learning Management System (LMS)
Sample Educational Media Productions
Media productions can bring dry content to life and there are many free technologies available that cans support the inexpensive production of custom educational content.
Exploring Science Fiction & Culture
References
- Robben, Joost & Yap, Robin (2010). A model for leveraging social learning technologies in corporate environments, Proceedings of Network Learnings Conference 2010. Lancaster, UK. Retrieved October 8, 2010 from http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/organisations/netlc/past/nlc2010/abstracts/PDFs/Yap.pdf