Communities of Practice

P. Reimann ()
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P. Reimann: University of Sydney

Chapter 15 in Handbook on Information Technologies for Education and Training, 2008, pp 277-293 from Springer

Abstract: Although being essentially a descriptive social theory, the communities of practice (CoP) idea has been frequently employed to guide instructional design, in particular the design of online learning communities. The chapter sets out by relating CoP as developed by Lave and Wenger (1991) to socio-cultural theories of learning. I then critically inspect the notion of an online community, noting that most of these so-called communities fall short on the social dimension. The Inquiry Learning Forum is introduced as a typical example for an online community platform (for in-service teachers), and building on this specific instance a set of general design guidelines for online communities of learning are identified. I also sketch possible implications for the role software developers and instructional designers can play when designing for communities of users. The chapter closes by a look at recent management research relating to CoPs and identifies research desiderata.

Keywords: Social Capital; Instructional Design; Online Community; Learning Community; Virtual Community (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:ihichp:978-3-540-74155-8_15

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-74155-8_15

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