5. Communities of Practice

1. This week, we'll do some historical and theoretical grounding. Neither social good nor social media exist without community and there is some excellent research and practice regarding the formation and nurturing of community. Scholars cannot talk about community without considering the work of Etienne Wenger and his colleague, Jean Lave. They coined the term "community of practice" (CoP) and developed much of our understanding of the dynamics of communities formed of common passions, interests and goals. The work linked above summarizes their ideas, brought into the present.
   1. Then, start at Wikipedia to form a foundational understanding of how we now understand CoPs and dive into ONE of the primary references listed at the bottom of the Wiki site. Read and summarize ONE that most intrigues you. All of them are informative.
2. Follow up: don't miss the work of Howard Rheingold, father of creating and exploring online communities. To get a sense of the history of online communities and behavior on places like Facebook, be sure to read (at very least) the Introduction to Howard's game-changing early work, The Virtual Community.

Summary,

• Three readings for this week: Wenger's sit on CoPs, definition of CoPs at Wikipedia, and Rheingold's work.
• Choose ONE of the references at the Wikipedia site, write an abstract, including reflections on questions below.