Week 4

            

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: WHAT LESSONS MIGHT WE TAKE FROM SUCCESSFUL (AND UNSUCCESSFUL) OCL INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS AND FROM THE CONCEPT OF THE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE (COP)?

            The lessons I took away from the OCL Institutional Innovations and the concept of the community of practice is to have a “a process and product of the highest standards” (Haraism). With the Wikipedia example, anyone can be the editor on the website. Some information found on the website “may contain false or debatable information” (Haraism). It’s important to have a team to keep information correct. Wikipedia has over “75,000” editors that upload consistently to the page. (Wikipedia) It has policies and guidelines to follow when uploading.

            I found that the most important part is collaboration. The Online Communities remind me of MOOC’s. Whether it’s a cMOOC or a xMooc, it’s important to allow others to collaborate and build off from each other’s knowledge. With the Community of Practice, there needs to be a community. Members need to be “engaged and share activities, help each other and share information” (Wenger).

            With collaboration there also needs to be a form of blended learning environment. It’s interesting talking to my colleagues who are taking other courses online. Most of them have discussion boards to write on during the week and respond to other classmates by a certain time. There is no class meetings (google hangout, webex), only reading and then responding to their blog. I am relieved that all my courses have included virtual hangouts, class recordings and discussions with classmates through twitter and weekly blog postings. It used to be where distance learning only included lessons being emailed or by post mail. There was no collaboration or interaction with others who were taking the class.

The online program is based on “collaborative learning,

It uses group discussions and group projects. The pedagogy also encourages students who are educators to reflect on their own educational practice and to work together to generate new insights into teaching and learning that they might apply in their own work” (Salmon and Lawless). Communities are not a new idea. These were the “first knowledge – based social structures” (Haraism). Many people participate in online communities such as social networks. Almost anyone you talk to has or had a facebook account or knows about a social network sight. When we look at a social network, we view it as a real and authentic place. This generation you can find news articles on the site. Whether it’s current research or made up, is up to the community member to decide. We need to understand there are multiple resources and falsified information on the web. It’s important to do our own research.

         This is the same for online communities.  Members can read reviews and be informed if the site provides insightful information. A good check is to ask “ is it alive and is it well”? (Haraism). Are members adding information, current research, discussing ideas and collaborating with each other?  It’s easy to start an online community, but the hard part is sustaining it. With an online community, we also need to create it where anyone in the world can access it and not be on a time constraint.

Resources

Harasim, L. (2012). Learning theory and online technologies. New York, NY: Routledge.

Wenger, E. (n.d.). Communities of Practice. Retrieved February 4, 2015, from http://www.learning-theories.com/communities-of-practice-lave-and-wenger.html

Wikipedia:About. (n.d.). Retrieved February 3, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About

Online Communities for Educators. (n.d.). Retrieved February 4, 2015, from http://connectededucators.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/0143_OCoP-Design-Guidelines-March-2011.pdf

Salmon, G. & Lawless, N. (2006). Management education for the twenty- first century. In C. J. Bonk & C. R. Graham (Eds.), The handbook of blended learning (pp. 387–399). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.