CPsquare

One of the topics that always comes up in the workshop is how communities use technology to stay in touch. We actually simulate and experience a lot of the potentials, possibilities, and rigors of using technology to convene a global community of practice during the workshop’s seven weeks.

We also practice what we preach:

Yesterday we had a planning meeting which had had to be delayed several times. Finally, we had an organizational meeting that lasted a half hour. Etienne launched his Instant Messenger to see whether Bronwyn’s plane had landed in Brisbane. Bronwyn saw him logged on and sent him a message. I called him on my cell phone and he conferenced Bronwyn into the call. We spoke on the phone as I rode my bike as we talked about what needed to be done, who might be recruited, what we might change or evolve. I thought to myself: this is it.

Lurking from a Legitimate Peripheral Participation perspective…

Project Leader: Jacquie McDonald

Members: Wendy Atkin, Frank Daugherity, Heather Fox, Alice MacGillivray, Doris Reeves-Lipscomb, Poonlarp Uthailertaroon.

Goal: The project idea was to explore what it means to have ‘legitimate peripheral participants’ in a CoP, and strategies to promote this idea when establishing a CoP - to overcome reluctance to commit because of fears of increased workload, and also to explore the literature in this area.

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The project ran over a three-week period as one component of a seven-week online workshop on Foundations of Communities of Practice, second trimester 2003. The project leader initiated the project topic and members of the workshop were invited to join the project team and participate in the planned activities and goals. Each team member contributed to the discussion (which was open to all workshop participants) and nominated to prepare final summary documents. Bronwyn Stuckey facilitated the project operation and also took part in the finale preparation of the project report. A project summary was prepared by the project leader.

Project Goal and Tasks

Explore what it means to be

After some eleven offerings of the Foundations of Communities of Practice workshop since 1998, it’s high time that we publish occasional notes about the workshop’s constant evolution and development. Even though participants express a great deal of enthusiasm for it, the workshop’s leaders, and the community that’s grown up around around it, can’t seem to stop adding, changing, and improving it. It is indeed an open laboratory for learning.