Kablogerate

Bio of Freire

2004-12-12T20:30:00.000-08:00

A Short Biography of Paulo Freire
by Peter Fleck
December 12, 2004

Paulo Freire was born on September 19, 1921 in Recife, Brazil. Because of the world economic crisis of the late 1920's, Freire was exposed to poverty early in his life. This influenced his views on education.

He taught in a grammar school while still in high school and went on to study law at the University of Recife where he also studied philosophy and the psychology of language. In 1944, he married Elza Maia Costa Oliveira, a primary school teacher. They had four children together.

In 1946, Freire was made Director of the Department of Education and Culture of the Social Service in the Brazilian State of Pernambuco where he was charged with improving the living conditions of factory workers. This work helped in formulating his later theories.

In 1958, Freire presented a paper entitled "Education of Adults and Marginal Populations: the Mocambos Problem" at the Second National Conference on Adult Education in Rio de Janeiro. In this paper, Freire stated that adult education for the Mocambos must have a foundation in the consciousness of everyday situations lived by the learners and that this would help in promoting democracy.

Freire was made Director of the Division of Culture and Recreation for Recife's Department of Archives and Culture in 1961. In 1962, using his theories, 300 sugarcane sharecroppers were taught to read in 45 days. When this experiment concluded, President Joao Belchior Goulart invited Freire to implement a national literacy campaign with a goal to make five million adults literate in the first year and participants in the democratic process as Brazilian law required that voters pass a literacy test.

Unfortunately, a military coup deposed Goulart in 1964 and Freire was imprisoned for two months. He finally received asylum in Bolivia for a brief time before moving to Chile for five years where he worked for Eduardo Frei's Christian Democratic Party.

In 1967, Freire published his first book, Education as the Practice of Freedom. In 1968, he published his most famous book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He was invited to teach at Harvard as a visiting professor in 1969. He spent a year at Harvard and then moved to Geneva, Switzerland to work with the World Congress of Churches as a special education adviser.

He was able to return to Brazil in 1980. He taught at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo and the State University of Campinas. In 1988, he was invited to take over the position of Municipal Secretary of Education in the new Workers' Party administration in Sao Paulo.

Freire died of heart failure on May 2, 1997.

Theory

Freire is best-known for attacking what he identified as the banking idea of education, where a student is viewed as an empty account to be filled with a "deposit" by the teacher. Instead, he advocated dialog and critical thought. His theories have influenced literacy programs and adult learning worldwide although many of these programs tend to ignore the more revolutionary aspects of his thought.

Freire's method of teaching become known as liberatory education, defined as "mutually supported learning for empowerment" (Heaney). Freire's view was that education is political. Based on his literacy campaigns in Brazil and Chile, which were integrated with programs of revolution and social change, he suggested several pedagogical techniques including reflecting on political content from the learner's daily experience, organizing "culture circles" to promote dialogue and interaction with peers, and using the "people's knowledge" as the basis for a curriculum.

Freire's concept of liberatory education also relies on the learner attaining critical consciousness. He describes this consciousness in three stages. First is "semi-intransitive" consciousness where perception is limited and focus is on survival. Second is "naive transitivity" where represented by traits such as over-simplification of problems, longing for the past, and a disinterest in investigation. Finally comes "critical transitivity," "characterized by depth in the interpretation of problems, by testing one's own findings and openness to revision and reconstruction" (Heaney).

Freire's emphasis on people working with one another (and not on one another) via dialogues and by situating the learning within the experience of the students, has had great influence on informal and adult education. His goal was to incite radical social change through education by using a "pedagogy of the oppressed" or a "pedagogy of hope."

Application

Freire's theories regarding the equality of the teacher and student and a curriculum built on the student's life could be well-applied to current instructional design via the emerging social networking applications. Given the right training and access to a computer, students would be able to use their developing literacy skills on both blogs and wikis to form opinions and carry on conversations. This would be in addition to face-to-face meetings with discussion. This would also allow for worldwide linking and the possibility of a true social-change agenda.

Freire's philosophies fit well with current education and business training theories involving situated learning and communities of practice which share a similarity with Freire's culture circles.

It should again be mentioned that Freire saw his methodology as standing outside of the status quo of the oppressor and preparing the oppressed to work at radical social change. In utilizing his ideas today, practitioners often strip them of these social change aspects.

Sources

Heaney, Tom. "Issues in Freirean Pedagogy." June 20, 1995. [http://www.paulofreireinstitute.org/Documents/freiren_pedagogy_by_Tom_Heaney.html] [Visited December 12, 2004]

Lownd, Peter. Freire's Life and Work. no date. [http://www.paulofreireinstitute.org/Documents/PF-life_and_work_by_Peter.html] [Visited December 12, 2004]

Paulo Freire. Wikipedia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire] [Visited December 12, 2004]

Smith, Mark K. Paulo Freire. May 8, 1997. [http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-freir.htm] [Visited December 12, 2004]

Resources

del.icio.us social bookmarks for 'freire'

TIP Handout

2004-11-29T15:28:00.000-08:00

Here is the handout I plan to use. Let me know if you are unable to download.

Class Activity for the TIP Presentation

2004-11-29T15:13:00.000-08:00

Hand out COP definition paper.
Divide class in groups of four. Each group assign spokesperson.
Each group to decide:
According to the definition above, Is CI 5331 a community of practice?
List three reasons why it is or why it isn't.
Spokesperson tells class what the reasons are.
Aimee maps out.

Do we list on white board too?

I think we just monitor the discussion and try to ask questions. I will have some questions in mind but all of us can contribute here.

Defining a COP

2004-11-29T14:04:00.000-08:00

I am still thinking that we should define COPs with a handout for the first exercise. One reason is so that we are all discussing the same characteristics and we are not attempting a definition from multiple class sources. This, to me, is somewhat like a control for the exercise.

Here is the definition that I would recommend, taken from Mr. Wenger's web site.

Communities of Practice

Definition:
Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better.

Characteristics:

1. The domain:
A community of practice has a shared domain of interest and shared competence that distinguishes members from other people.

2. The community:
In pursuing their interest in their domain, members engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other.

3. The practice:
Members of a community of practice are practitioners, not merely a community of interest. They develop a shared practice including a repertoire of resources. This takes time and sustained interaction.

Source: What are Communities of Practice? by Etienne Wenger. http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm

The Book and The People

2004-11-28T13:52:00.000-08:00

The Book

Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation
by Jean Lave & Etienne Wenger (1991)

The term "Communities of Practice" was coined in this book.

The People

Jean Lave

Professor of Education and Geography, University of Berkeley, California.

Social anthropologist with a strong interest in social theory.

Much of her work concentrates on the re-conceiving of learning, learners, and educational institutions in terms of social practice.

Selected books:

Understanding Practice (co-authored with S. Chaiklin, 1993);

Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (with E. Wenger, 1991);

Cognition in Practice (1988).

2004 Keynote speaker OKLC 2004 Fifth European Conference on Organizational Knowledge, Learning and Capabilities. "Communities of Practice as Inter-Generation-al Relations"

Etienne Wenger

Pioneer of "community of practice" research.

Author and co-author:

Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (Cambridge University Press, 1998)

Cultivating Communities of Practice: a Guide to Managing Knowledge (Harvard Business School Press, 2002)

Founder of CPsquare: cross-organizational, cross-sector community of practice on communities of practice
http://www.cpsquare.org/

Research Project: Learning for a Small Planet
broad, cross-sectoral investigation of the nature of learning and learning institutions at the dawn of the new millennium
http://www.ewenger.com/research/researchsummary.htm

Java COP demonstration

2004-11-27T21:19:00.000-08:00

A COP demonstration from the Java forums at forum.java.sun.com. Demonstrates, questions asked, advice given, differing opinions, neophytes vs. “experts”, the feeling of being part of a community, sharing of personal stories etc.

http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?forumID=54&threadID=485762

Question:

“What's the best Java IDE for a newbie?”

Note: IDE is an environment in which you code in the language of your choice

Answers:

“What do you want to get out of an IDE? What will it really do for you?”

“I use jEdit and andt at a command shell, and that setup rocks”

“I've heard a lot about eclipse, and I use it (well, WSSD) to build and deploy portlets, but so far I'm not impressed with its editor.”

“JCreator is quite good for a start.”

“So, for instance, one of my favorite IDEs out there is called BlueJ” (this is what I use)

Follow-up:

“Thanks for the suggestions.
I did kind of like NetBeans IDE (just because it was free) because I could easily compile a project at the click of a button and easily run my code without having to type out long commands...
However, if you all suggest I just use command-line compiling, then thats what I'll do…”

Reply:

“Make no mistake--IDEs can be a great tool. It's just that it's better to first see how all the gears and levers and pulleys fit together before covering them up with the shiny pushbutton IDE.”

More follow-up:

“BTW i'm not sure if i'm disapointing someone, but i'm just learning java for fun, without classes or tutors”

Reply:

“Hardly. I can't speak for anyone else here, but personally I feel my time has been better spent if I've helped someone with some bit of Java that they want to do than if they have to do it.”

More Follow-up:

“My kids (10, 7) are my test staff and like to play with my adding machines :).
They even wanna learn it, hehe.. Curious, because they'r from a generation used to beautifull intensive graphics!”

...Around 20 more posts that are mostly geeky programming jokes…:)

What is the theory?

2004-11-27T20:55:00.000-08:00

Learning is a function of the activity, context and culture in which it occurs. The theory is primarily social rather than psychological, and originates from Lave and Wenger (1991).

Situated Learning rejects traditional classroom learning activities which involve knowledge presented in an abstract form and out of context. The theory also places emphasis on social interaction. In Lave and Wegner’s (1991) words, “learning is an integral and inseparable aspect of social practice”.

Knowledge is acquired as learners become involved in a “community of practice” (the context and culture idea). As newcomers move from the periphery of this community to its center, they become more active and engaged within the culture and assume the role of experts. Furthermore, situated learning is usually unintentional rather than deliberate (touched on this during Jason’s presentation). These ideas are what Lave & Wenger (1991) call the process of "legitimate peripheral participation."

Main principles

1. Knowledge needs to be presented in an authentic context, i.e., settings and applications that would normally involve that knowledge.

2. Learning requires social interaction and collaboration.

How do you believe the theory will impact education and instructional design in the future?

2004-11-26T18:07:00.000-08:00

-A movement towards more cooperative practices. The theory states that social interaction is critical. To move from the periphery of a learning community towards the centre, one needs to be involved with the community, collaborate, inquire and assist others. This movement applies to both the education and corporate sectors. I see the corporate sector as a slower adopter because that sector values a person's ability to be “independent” and "innovative".

- The classroom of the future: Forget abstract teaching and learning, and embrace authentic contextual learning. “Field trips” may become the norm and we may see a greater involvement of professionals in the classroom. Perhaps a name change where classrooms are called “laboratories”.

- Before moving towards the “classroom of the future” I see the integration of problem-based learning activities (e.g. The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury from the Cognition & Technology Group at Vanderbilt and the projects of the Center for the Study of Collaborative Problem Solving at Missouri headed by D. Jonassen) and other interactive multimedia applications (e.g. see “Microworlds” from the Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology by Lloyd Rieber- & “Situated Games” – ‘JFK Reloaded?’)

Email Changes

2004-11-26T14:09:00.000-08:00

I went through the settings and found that George had co-opted all email functions! So I took away his admin privileges. Just kidding.

Turns out there is only one email box for the blog. We don't get our own settings as members of the blog. So I have listed all our emails (with comma separators) in hopes that will allow us all to be notified when someone posts or comments.

This will be a test post and then I'll comment and you both the notified.

BTW, I'm in a coffee shop looking out over Lake Superior in Duluth. It's a dreary day but it doesn't seem to have snowed or rained here. We did drive through a snow storm on the way from St. Cloud to Duluth.

Winter has arrived.

Heading North and some notes

2004-11-25T13:40:00.000-08:00

We are leaving for St. Cloud and Turkey then on to Duluth and relaxing near the big lake. I have found coffee shops in each city with wireless access so expect to hear from me probably more than my favorite wife would like.

TO DO for PF
I've got the bio of Lave and Wegner. If anyone sees Lave info, let me know. She's a bit elusive. Wegner has material on his site.

I'll also relate the theory to meaningful learning and I think my previous post on this is a good start. Aimee's post should help too.

And I'll do my meaningful activity but I'll want to run the script by yous guys. I'll get on that.

Chatting: can we actually chat on webct? Is that activated for students. George, I'll bet you might know.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING AND TO ALL AND GOODBYE TILL ? I'll probably be off-line until Friday sometime unless Mary's family throws me out (always a possibility) or I find a wireless access point in my mother-in-law's neighborhood.

New and Final Blog

2004-11-24T21:45:00.000-08:00

New Blog Our new blog is at:

http://kablog-tip.blogspot.com/

Feel free to change the template. This one seemed nice.

SL Impact on Educ/ID and Tech Implications

2004-11-24T17:19:00.000-08:00

Here's my sections for the prez (feel free to make any changes):

How has situated learning impacted education and instructional design?

Creates a “powerful metaphor for human learning that incorporates elements of everyday cognition, informal learning, authentic learning experiences, and cultural influences” (Wilson, 1995; Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989).
Embodies a learner-centered, problem-based approach to learning (Wilson, 1995; Wilson & Ryder, 1996; Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989)
Fosters “cognitive apprenticeships” where students are presented “with a task in a familiar activity” where scaffolding is available for “unfamiliar tasks” (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989, p. 10).
Encourages the development of Wenger’s communities of practice or Wilson and Ryder’s dynamic learning communities which entails “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better” (“Communities of Practice,” Wenger, 2004).
Integrates the situated experience of an internship or apprenticeship throughout the curriculum and help students develop critical-thinking and problem-solving skills embedded in authentic learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991)
Transforms the perception of instructional design whereby ID, once viewed as traditional, rigid, and systematic, is now seen as current, well-positioned, and localized (Wilson, 1995)

What are the implications for technology integration?

Use of low-tech communication tools to foster community, e.g., email listservs, blogs, newsgroups, discussion forums, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), and instant messaging (IM)
Growth of content management systems (e.g., WebCT, Blackboard, Mooddle) to create cognitive apprenticeships among small group collaborations
Development of architecturally-structured K-12 professional development forums, i.e., TappedIn
Integration of videoconferencing for work collaboration, e.g., Flash Communication Server, Breeze, WebEx
Creation of business-oriented COP tools with shared workspace areas as well as the ability to synchronize with email messages and calendar appointments

UThink Blog for Presentation

2004-11-24T10:42:00.000-08:00

Kablogers,

go to http://blog.lib.umn.edu/

log-in and you should be at the blog.

Play around if you like. You have almost full settings. George, you do have full settings. Aimee, you have everything except messing with the address book because I thought why would we need that then I thought maybe that is our email addresses when I did George and then I would go back and change yours but I don't know how... yet. I'll get there.

Anyway, let me know what you think.

Presentation Update

2004-11-24T09:45:00.000-08:00

From Aimee's Email:

Greetings gentlemen,

George, we didn't really talk about much related to our prez--just that we
thought we would have email access over the holiday to chat as needed.

If you don't have any objections, here's my action plan:
- Add the responses to my assigned questions today and post them to
kablogger

- Be prepared to create a concept map of "Peter's Opening Activity"
discussion
- Be ready for brief 5-minute demos of COP tools: Breeze, Groove, and
TappedIn.

- Take the lead on developing a handout for more information on Breeze,
Groove, and TappedIn. I'm thinking maybe it could be the Wenger PDF handout
that Peter sent to us on one side and the additional Breeze, Groove, and
TappedIn information on the other side.

Presentation Roles Still Available:
1. Create the blog or other media that will house our presentation

2. Provide brief prez intro and introduce "Peter's Opening Activity"

3. Conduct the after session for "Peter's Opening Activity" (while I'm
creating the concept map)

4. Conduct the lecture part of our presentation

5. Pass out the handouts to the class (when? Just after the activity
session?)

6. Conclude the presentation, after Peter and George's community examples,
open it up for questions from the class

Lurking

2004-11-21T10:39:00.000-08:00

We've discussed lurking on lists, etc. and I found this in an article I'm reading about blogging. I think it makes an interesting and valid point.

Indeed, Nonnecke & Preece (2001) maintain that lurking is an imperative aspect of an online community and should be regarded as a form of passive or vicarious participation that not only serves to increase the understanding in the lurker, but provides a sense of belonging regardless of whether they ever intend to participate. There is also the possibility that active participants in an online community 'perform' to a potential readership that may or may not eventually become active participants in a community. Thus, active participants may well assume a lurking audience as part of the accepted risk of rebuttal, in creating an argument or expressing a theory in making a blog entry. This risk, in turn, develops skills among active participants in critical thinking and argument creation.

Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector by Jeremy Williams

Presentation Outline: Sitatued Learning in Communties of Practice

2004-11-17T13:29:00.000-08:00

Here's an outline for our presentation from my notes on yesterday's session:

15 mins: Peter's COP group activity w/a plenary session using MindGenius concept mapping tool

10 mins: PowerPoint presentation (About the authors, the theory, the theory & IST, theory & meaningful learning, theory & future, etc)

15 mins: Demonstrations of communities of practice:
Aimee: TappedIn.org (academic), Groove (business/industry)*
Peter: Perl COP
George: Java COP

5 mins: Summary/Conclusion/Questions

**I added Groove, which is an amazing COP tool. We use it for our work communications. See groove.net. Let me know if you have any objections--I'm glad to take it out. =)**

Thinking Out Loud

2004-11-14T15:28:00.000-08:00

I'm looking over the assignment sheet for the TIP presentation and thought I'd share some notes in preparation for our Tuesday meeting.

Who were the authors of the theory?
Lave and Wenger. We should mention the book. Any other seminal work for this?

What is the theory?
Start with the definition from the TIP site. Mix in the Community of Practice idea and also legitimate peripheral participants. Discuss examples and non-examples - I've noted that there is some confusion on what comprises a COP so it would be good to come up with groups that aren't COPs or to open that up for discussion. In fact, this could be an exercise with the class!

How has the theory impacted education and instructional design?
links that may be helpful here:
This is Browns paper which is mentioned on the TIP site.
http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/publications/papers/JohnBrown.html

http://homepage.mac.com/scottlab/situated.html

(I may have got them from you but here they are again.)

Does the Reiser text have anything?

This might be helpful:
http://www.ewenger.com/theory/communities_of_practice_intro.htm#Where%20useful

I think the theory has definitely impacted both education and instructional design.

I see COPs as circles and we are all part of several of these circles that intersect. Some are more functional than others.

Is a family a COP? What about a church congregation?

These questions could lead to something participatory with the class.

What are some examples of the theory and how has it impacted and what are the implications for education and instructional design?

Hmmm. Same question almost as the previous.

What are the implications for technology integration?

The Internet provides excellent resources to support a community of practice. Mailing lists, blogs, newsgroups, IRC, IM, all can be used.

How does the theory relate to meaningful learning?

When correctly configured, situated learning allows for very meaningful learning. It emphasizes learning (doing) rather than teaching (filling someone with knowledge). Relates to apprenticeships. If you think of jobs you have really enjoyed and learned from, I bet it was due to some degree of situated learning.

Develop and deliver a generativge activity for the class to understand the theory.

Objective to understand theory.

Put together examples and non-examples and have class or groups decide if it's a COP and involved with situated learning.

Divide in groups and come up with a COP example for each group that we will then discuss together.

Develop a plan (in groups) to turn our current class (CI5331) into a COP utilizing situated learning. (I like this one.) What would it look like?

from Amy:
What about an activity where we divide students into groups and have them read a thread from a situated group of some sort. We could ask them to identify the relationships and ability levels of members of these groups and perhaps more as we learn more about situated learning.

Consider our class a COP and evaluate how well it's functioning.

How do you believe the theory will impact education and instructional design in the future?

I think it is impacting especially in corporate environments. One way I see it changing education is that learning will become more cooperative rather than competitive.

OK. I'm burnt out now. Comment or post if you can.

More on Settings

2004-11-01T04:18:00.000-08:00

I keep digging in the settings here to try and make it easier to know when there are new postings.

Under 'settings=>email' you can have posts to the blog emailed to you. So email communication can be combined with the blogging. You can also have comments to your posts emailed to you.

Disappearing Drafts

I had a couple of drafts floating in my list of posts and they disappeared. Then I noticed that there is a setting for how many posts/drafts are displayed at one time and the default is five. When I increased that, my drafts reappeared.

Workshop Sessions?

2004-10-31T22:16:00.000-08:00

I'm interested in your thoughts on this idea:

What about an activity where we divide students into groups and have them read a thread from a situated group of some sort. We could ask them to identify the relationships and ability levels of members of these groups and perhaps more as we learn more about situated learning.

P.S. We may need to ask Aaron about IRB permissions, etc.

Presentation by Lave

2004-10-31T15:23:00.000-08:00

I found a presentation by Jean Lave from 1999: "The Politics of Learning in Everyday Life." It also includes the audio.

New Settings for Our Blog

2004-10-31T14:10:00.000-08:00

You should see a pencil icon following each blog entry. Clicking the pencil will allow you to edit the post immediately. You do have to be logged in your blogger account.

I also have a 'secret' email address that allows me to email a blog entry. The subject becomes the entry title and the body of the email is the body of the entry. I have it set to make it a draft and to not directly publish. I think you can set this up for yourselves also. Check the settings.

Is CI5331 a COP?

2004-10-31T13:58:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween!

Etienne Wenger's site has a good introduction to Communities of Practice.

My idea of using our class as a COP still has merit, I think. But what about the class itself and not "grad students"?

The question: Is our class a community of practice?

There are three crucial characteristics (see Wenger above): domain, community, practice.

Our domain is instructional design.

Our community is the class. We meet regularly and learn together and help each other in the learning process.

Our practice? I'm not so sure about this.

Members of a community of practice are practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems—in short a shared practice. This takes time and sustained interaction.

Etienne Wenger

We certainly have sustained interaction but what is the practice in the end? We are not all planning on becoming Instructional Designers. Could we say our practice is teaching? What we learn in Aaron's class will certainly help in being a good teacher.

Wikipedia Entry for Situated Learning

2004-10-29T21:22:00.000-07:00

Wikepedia is a collaborative encyclopedia. They have an entry for
situated learning.

What Is Situated Learning?

2004-10-26T06:13:00.000-07:00

Definitions of Situated Learning on the Web (from Google, define: situated learning):

theory formulated by Lave and Wenger which considers social interaction to be central for learning, and where the physical and social environment plays a vital role in the learning process. For an introduction, with further links, see for example Chen or Brown.
clp.cqu.edu.au

It's learning on the job but learning as a "legitimate peripheral participant." This means more than just being a laborer doing a task; it means truly learning or legitimately participating and changing your status from one of novice to an old-timer.

Why Kablogerate?

2004-10-26T05:39:00.000-07:00

As I created this blog I had to come up with a name and my wife, Mary, came up with the kablogerate idea as a play on the words "blog" and "collaborate."

Presentation software

2004-10-19T13:44:00.000-07:00

We could powerpoint everything and then use Macromedia breeze to turn the presentation in a format that will be accessible to everyone...

Thinking about Situated Learning

2004-10-17T20:54:00.000-07:00

(Added a WebCT link on the left under Google News. Any other links? I thought of putting the articles from our posts.)

What's the name of our group? Since we are Kablogging, I suggest Kablogerators. Other ideas? We should post to the WebCT area.

Lots of questions to answer from the TIP hand0ut. Shall we Powerpoint the basic stuff (authors, theory, impact, etc.)? Or maybe we can find a cool web ap for presentation.

I really like the Dynamic Learning Communities piece referred by Aimee and it got my cognitive juices flowing.

I am wondering if we could develop a generative activity that would use our class as a dynamic learning community with the CoP being graduate students. Some of us have been around for a while (Aimee, George), others (me) are new to the system and have not even applied to grad school yet. We have our experts and novices.

We then come up with an environment of generating some of this knowledge. How we do this is still vague for me. We could identify a novice and have her or him ask a question and an expert would respond. Identifying experts and novices could be part of the process.

We could assess the learning with a survey and folks could give it back and we could post results to the blog. I might even be able to get an online form up for the assessment but no promises.

What do you think?

Quotes

2004-10-17T18:57:00.000-07:00

Some things I jotted down for the heck of it...

"Rather than asking what kind of cognitive processes and conceptual structures are involved, they ask what kinds of social engagements provide the proper context for learning to take place" William F. Hanks from the introduction to Situated Learning by Lave & Wegner.

"So we tend to think of DLCs [Dynamic Learning Communities] not simply as tools for self-directed learning, but as supportive communities wherein a variety of learning goals may be pursued, some individual and some shared throughout the membership."
Dynamic Learning Communities: An Alternative to Designed Instructional Systems
Brent Wilson, Martin Ryder

"The cost of DLC's in industry is the cost of allowing employees to break away from their isolated duties to enable apprentice observation, collaboration, and formal discussions about work related tasks and issues, the ability to archive new knowledge in retrievalbe structures, and the ability to engage in Internet discussions and research activities that relate to job-specific problems and issues."
Dynamic Learning Communities: An Alternative to Designed Instructional Systems
Brent Wilson, Martin Ryder

Some readings at delicious

2004-10-17T17:43:00.000-07:00

I think I emailed this but I'll toss it in the blog:

http://del.icio.us/pfhyper/COP

Several links to 'community of practice' and situated learning stuff. You might also check the "COP from all users" link on the right. Others have been creating these bookmarks too.

Delicious is quite a nice site for storing bookmarks. If either of you are interested in using it, we could subscribe to each other's 'COP' listings.

Other Situated Learning Resources

2004-10-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

A few other informative situated learning sites/articles:

http://www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm

http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/dlc.html

http://www.ericfacility.net/ericdigests/ed418250.html

I have also retrieved a few articles from Education FullText. I'll let you know when I post them to my Website, so you can retrieve them.

In the Blogosphere (For Peter's Issue Paper)

2004-10-12T09:39:00.000-07:00

The Rhetoric department has a great, informative collection of blog articles. You can find them at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ Maybe you can try publishing your issues paper with them! They don't seem to have a lot of articles on educational issues--just other disciplines.

Situated Learning Tutorials: Websites

2004-10-11T15:03:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

as i mentioned in class last week i have a couple of tutorials that Cassie gave me. Here are the links:

http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000323/00/139.htm (about 25 pages)
http://hale.pepperdine.edu/~tehiggin/lave.html (2 pages)
http://wipaed.wiwi.tu-dresden.de/lehrst/lehre/ntdll/links7.html (3 pages)
http://www.educationau.edu.au/archives/cp/04k.htm (2 pages)

I found the first one to be somewhat interesting and the other ones to be more broad explanations of situated learning. Enjoy,

George