Learning For A Small Planet

Etienne Wenger
Author of Situated Learning, where the term was coined, Communities of Practice: learning, meaning, and identity, where he lays out a theory of learning based on the concept, and Cultivating Communities of Practice.

Learning for a small planet is a unique project to develop new learning models for the 21st century. The social learning theory based on communities of practice provides a good foundation to do this. It brings together issues of meaning making, social practice, community, and identity. From this perspective, learning is a social journey as well as a cognitive process in that it involves our whole being. By transforming our ability to participate in the world, it is a transformation of our identity. And from this perspective, enabling learning is not merely the transmission of information and skills, but an invitation to a journey of the self. This framework is finding applications in many sectors today. Leading organizations in the private and public sectors are discovering that the most significant learning takes place in self-governed communities where practitioners develop their knowledge together. Educators are using this perspective as a way to move beyond teacher-centric classroom-based approaches. Governments are using it to explore new roles for governance structures in a learning society. Taking such a broad view is ambitious, but it is an urgent task because our understanding of learning will guide how address the learning challenges that we face today. These challenges range from the individual to the global and cut across traditional divisions between sectors. Only by taking a sufficiently broad view can we hope to develop the new models of learning that will allow us to face the learning challenges of our small planet.

Collaboration at CSC: From Virtual Teams to Communities

Mark Neff
Senior Advisory Staff Member, Computer Sciences Corporation

With more than 76,000 employees in 80 countries around the world, CSC provides global technology consulting, systems integration and outsourcing service solutions across a variety of industries. This presentation provides an overview of how CSC leverages virtual teams and communities for service delivery, including specific strategies and approaches to help foster collaboration and engage employees around the world.

Building Association Learning Networks Using Social Media

Jeff De Cagna
Co-founder of Association Renewal LLC and Chief Strategist and Founder of Principled Innovation LLC

Association leaders who are prepared to think differently about innovation, collaboration and community and collaboration can leverage "social media" tools, such as blogs, podcasting, wikis, social bookmarks and RSS, to create microcommunities and distributed innovation networks within the context of their organizations.

The democratic and DIY ethic of these technologies challenges us to take a fresh look at how new ideas emerge and are shared, as well as how we can effectively support innovation at various levels of the organization, as well as the industry or profession. This presentation, facilitated by a long-time association executive turned innovation advisor and social media experimenter, will share new ideas and perspectives that can help your association prepare for the future today!

The Apple Digital Campus Exchange Community

John Ittelson, Ph.D.
Professor in the School of Information Technology and Communications Design, and Director of the Interactive Design and Educational Applications Lab (The I.D.E.A. Lab)California State University, Monterey Bay; and Community Facilitator, Apple Digital Campus Exchange

The Apple Digital Campus Exchange is an online community for higher education faculty and academic leaders to share lessons learned, best practices, and ideas about new ways of teaching and learning within Apple pervasive computing environments. Included are blogs covering a range of interesting topics related to pervasive computing: the Conversations area providing threaded discussions on pervasive computing within different academic disciplines, and a Who's Online section to facilitate immediate collaboration in forums and via iChat.

Dr. Ittelson will describe how the community was designed, and the early lessons learned during the launch of this brand new community in mid-September.

Blending Communities of Practice and Training

Jack Merklein
Director, Knowledge and Learning, Xerox Global Services, Inc

In most organizations, training and any effort around Communities of Practice (CoPs) are usually separate programs. Combining training with robust CoPs helps to maximize learning, diffuse new ideas, and facilitates the establishment and nurturing of subject matter expert networks. One key to making this possible is to develop all training with an eye towards the CoPs and to ensure that any CoP that is established has links to training materials that support that CoP. This presentation will outline how Xerox Global Services is building training programs and including CoPs and collaborative tools as a routine part of the learning experience.

Technology, Communities, & Knowledge Sharing In Healthcare

An international panel of healthcare experts who have been exploring the role of communities in healthcare, including, among others, Dr. Alasdair E. Honeyman (MBBS BSc MRCGP, Phoenix Health Process Consulting) and Jim Palmer (Caldwell Palmer Group).

The need for and desire to share knowledge in healthcare is increasing rapidly. The many uses of technology in healthcare steadily increase the demand for learning and knowledge transfer. But does technology provide opportunities for knowledge sharing and transfer as well? How can we sort out the contributions that people in their different roles bring to this rapidly evolving system? The roles range from patient, citizen, consumer, care-giver to clinicians. Each role exists within different organizational and social settings, including those of government, corporation and community. This panel brings together practitioners and thought leaders from both sides of the Atlantic to discuss what works and why.

Online And Face-to-face Learning For Communities

John Smith
Community Steward, CPsquare, and Principal, Learning Alliances
and
Beverly Trayner
Departamento de Economia e Gestão, Escola Superior de Ciências Empresariais, Setúbal, Portugal

Because CPsquare is globally distributed, ambitious, and cost-conscious, the community has evolved a unique style of organizing meetings that combines online and face-to-face elements. Designs that work for us as a community of practice have also been adapted to work with clients and are offered for use in other settings. Because various technologies are used to "be together" before anybody meets face-to-face, our face-to-face events place more emphasis on many-to-many communication, knowledge construction and the development of relationships and practices that can continue collaboration after the event.

Empowering Transformational Collaborations: Learning Communities in Ohio

Sheryl Hansen
Director, Professional Development Programs, Ohio Learning Network

Since 2002, fifty-three learning community projects at twenty-four institutions consisting of 460 faculty, instructional designers, librarians, IT staff, students, and administrators have participated in the Ohio Learning Network Learning Communities Initiative (OLN LCI). In addition, nine institutions have partnered with the OLN LCI to build a state scaffold of support for our learning communities. State and regional services, professional development institutes, venues for networking, cross-institutional problem solving, and resource sharing have occurred because of this unique multi-institutional partnership. Last year alone, 15,337 students have been taught and touched by the 260 members of the OLN LCI’s twenty-two learning communities.

This session will provide an overview of the Initiative goals and framework, lay out the challenges and opportunities we’ve faced, offer snapshots into the actions of innovators, share the technological challenges that have been mostly overcome, and describe our action research based assessment philosophy. Ohio’s learning communities are creating maps and building bridges to help others find this new networked landscape for learning. Session participants are invited to do the same! Let’s contribute to our shared knowledge base by exploring common issues and creating strategies and maps that will bring us closer to a culture of collaboration, continuous deep learning and transformation within higher education.

Design for community – how intentional can it be?

Bronwyn Stuckey
MEd, BEd, GD Ed Studies, Educational Researcher and Community Developer

Managers in many fields of endeavor are being charged with cultivating CoPs and face the tension of planning for a largely self-organizing entity. How much can we design for community and how can we build for emergence? There will be a brief presentation demonstrating some community designs and the issues they raise. To honor the CoP ethos, this presentation will take the shape of a conversation in which participants will be invited to contribute from their personal experience as, we focus on some provocative questions in relation to design for communities of practice mediated over technology.