“A community of practice is a group of people who share knowledge, learn together and create common practices. Communities of practice share information, insight, experience and tools about an area of common interest.” (Richard McDermott), this group of people is also integrated according to the concerns and passions that they have (Wenger, 2006), their reason for being together is the learning and it can be enhanced with the members’ interaction.
Knowledge is integrated in the life of communities (Cross, 2003). This is not a new issue for education, theories in second language acquisition such as the socio cultural theory (Vygostky, 1978) evidences that since many years ago the social learning has been studied in order to find why people learn more during the practice and real experiences than attending to other instructions. The socio cultural theory is based on the asseverations that human mental functioning is a mediated process which is organized by cultural artifacts, activities and concepts which are the base for cognitive changes as a result of using cultural tools in social interrelation. Besides, although human beings have neurobiological abilities for learning, it is more important the interaction within social and material environments to develop cognitive activities (VanPatten, B. & Williams, J. 2007).
These aspects, just mentioned, are closely related to the communities of practices’ characteristics of interaction with other for learning for each other, in order to learn together, that means building relationships to share information and develop discussion for mutual help, which are a kind of mediation where factors such as social, cultural and environment tools facilitate learning. Another important aspect is the reality in which members of a community are immersed, if they are thinking about the same issues and they have similar ideas to support a topic or a project, or they are looking towards the same interests, the interaction and fluency of knowledge will allow better interchange of knowledge and at the same time enhancing of learning processes. In that way, learning is much more accurate and valid, this is because it fosters (produces) a transformation where all the members of a community are committed to enhance their performance and their learning environment.
With this background it is possible to say that learning is social and is an act of participation. As Cross (2003, based on Charles Handy) argues the learning given in real contexts, with real situations of the life and real problems is the best way of learning. in this way, meaningful learning takes place, since between the relationship teaching and learning the social context and the environment provide enough elements for learners to appropriate of the knowledge in a effective and efficient way.
Possibly, that is the reason why Bronwyn Stuckey wrote “Much of what is made explicit in Communities of Practice happens at coffee, over lunch or at the famous water cooler. People chat and share ‘war stories’ and volunteer information to support colleagues and collaborate in informal ways. Do you believe we can formalize this process? How can we use online technologies to do this? How can we make use of these powerful and supportive sharing experiences for learning in distributed workplaces and for professional development?”.
On the other hand, technological tools have improved the channels to share information and communities are easily established with many people from different parts of the world. Day by day communication is easier and faster, it is possible to interchange information (any kind of information) and the only thing is to find the tool on the web, tools like Moodle, Ning, Twitter, blogs, wikis, podcasts and micro blogging have opened up a wealth of opportunities for professionals and learners to learn from others. That is a great advantage for people to develop communities of practice, given that many people around the world have the same interests, needs, concerns or passions. Therefore, it is relevant to mention here the social networking which is helpful to share with others in casual conversations the different experiences that in different ways can help to improve others’ practices and performance and the most important issue to build knowledge.
Finally, after a depth analysis about the communities of practice description, a question arises: are communities of practice here to stay? Maybe, this is the moment to talk about lifelong learning that is a continue process where people learn from own experiences and others’ experiences by implementing personal learning strategies. For lifelong learning the community is very important as a big part of this process, and as an important mediation between people and learning. So, the answer for this question can be YES, however, the characteristics and the ways of working will be changing day by day according to the communities’ necessities and the technological tools than are constantly advancing.
References:
• Cross, Jay (2003) Informal Learning – the other 80%. Retrieved from http://www.internettime.com/Learning/The%20Other%2080%25.htm
• Wenger, E. (2006). A community of practice. A brief introduction. Retrieved of may 23rd, 2010, from http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm
• VanPatten, B. & Williams, J. (2007) Theories in second language acquisition. An introduction. New Jersey. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. publishers.
