Week 3 - Blog Posting #6 -Communities of Practice

Let’s start off by defining Communities of Practice. This video gives a good explanation of what it is, taken from Second Life:



To start off, you don’t find it at my school. I know that sounds a bit negative, but I think it reflects education today in too many places. I listened to a speaker one time that talked about speaking to the many professions and the differences. He talked about when you went into the bathroom during a break with doctors and lawyers you heard them comparing notes and talking about their professions. But when he talked to educators, and in the same circumstances, found they were talking about anything but their profession. In the environment of education it seems many of the teachers around me don’t want to get into a conversation of best practices and what works or doesn’t work.


In the article: “Communities of Practice Learning as a Social System” by Etienne Wenger I found that I agreed with the fact that is how it should be, and depending on the administration, it definitely could be set up and supported. I would love to work in a system like that, but as stated in the previous paragraph I don’t. I believe one of the contributing factors is the fact that in my state everything is about the union, and that doesn’t encourage change or growth.

Where are there communities of practice? I belong to a great group. Here is my badge:


Visit Classroom 2.0


You can find this community of practice at http://www.classroom20.com. It’s made up of teachers and administrators from around the world. You can post questions on any area of education and will get great conversation that continues on for months. I’ve started some conversations on math and joined in on conversations. You can also follow people you are interested in and they will follow you. It has over 30,000 members. This is a community that strives after best practices.

Another community is located at: http://teachertube.com. Although this site hasn’t been around very long, it is developing into a community of practice. Teachers share videos, documents, audio, photos for others to use. It has a community set up with groups, bulletins, and forums. It also has a place for blogging, to help others share what they are learning.

I’ve been involved with a personal learning community that was a great idea, but only two of us were willing to discuss. The other three would share, but were satisfied even when it was obvious what they were doing wasn’t working. Part of the problem here was the fact that the administration wasn’t supporting it.

I think that is key to a vibrant learning community within a fixed setting. I’m not saying the administration should lead it. They need to support it, and even be an equal part of it by adding to the learning. Everyone that has a stake in the learning should be involved.