Polin: Education, social and technical networking

Polin, L. G. (2008) 'Graduate Professional Education from a Community of Practice Perspective: The Role of Social and Technical Networking', in Blackmore (ed.) Social Learning Systems and Communities of Practice, London, Springer, ch. 10. [dated?]

"Social computing applications enable the use of a COP model" (albeit "hybrid"/"blended") (Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 163).

Refer social learning theory (Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, pp. 164-165); "sociocultural""enculturation";

In a CoP, the community can be defined as a group of people:

"whose identities are defined in large part by the roles they play and relationships they share in that group activity. The community derives its cohesion from the joint construction of a culture of daily life built upon behavioral norms, routines, and rules, and from a sense of shared purpose. Community activity also precipitates shared artifacts and ideas that support group activity and individual sense-making. A community can be multigenerational; that is, it can exist over time in the comings and goings of individuals. In short, a community differs from a mere collection of people by the strength and depth of the culture it is able to estab­lish and which in turn supports group activity and cohesion" (Riel and Polin, 2004, p. 18).

From: (Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 165).

- Locating learning in professional practice, with a COP discourse [praxis] (Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, pp. 165-), with "cultural historical barriers" (Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, pp. 167-).

"Online"
"Web 2.0" technologies, "potentially" can "create ... divide" [for example], but [still?] have an openness,  "freedom to construct", and may make communication etc. "easier".
-> a "hybrid" of face-to-face and online (learning).
(Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, pp. 167-169).

but manage the "chaos" (Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 171).

Choosing between tools that "explicitly" foster collaboration values and practice, "create new participation structures" versus "reifying" existing practices (Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 169).

E.g. http://www.tappedin.org

E.g.s. chat text limits discourage dominating of the conversation (Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 170), "constraints" [features?] in technologies that "push the engagement into dialogue" (Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 171), asynchronous [vs. synchronous e.g. chat] (Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, pp. 171-172), 'hacking' tools (for example making all users a teacher role in an education tool) (Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 172), vs. podcasting [etc.] (Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, pp. 173-174).

Reification and participation (aka Lave and Wenger, 1991, in Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 175);

• "Healthy" community engagement and challenge, in "the practice, the knowledge base and the tool sets" (Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 175).

- "The COP model as a design touchstone helps us make reasoned choices [technically]". 

(Polin, 2008, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 177).