By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Aggregative or Emergent Identity? Rethinking Communities
Dave Snoeden offers his take on the distinction I have styled as the one between groups and networks. He describes the distinction, as the title suggests, as one between aggregation and emergent identity, which very much accords with my thinking. He brings to this discussion the concept of the 'crew': "I think that starting to take the concept of crews into a wider organisational role would give us a new and highly functional capability that would exceed that of any current community. We already use them in military and medical environments amongst others so it's not that revolutionary an idea." I wonder whether this would correspond to what Terry Anderson is calling a 'collective'. More...
Aggregative or Emergent Identity? Rethinking Communities
Communities of Practice
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Communities of Practice
This issue of eLearning Papers focuses on communities of practice. "This edition of eLearning Papers focuses on four distinct CoPs that have been fuelled by the use of electronic community building tools. In the last fifteen years, these tools have moved from online bulletin boards to wikis, audio and video podcasts, virtual meeting spaces, teleconferencing, and any combination of these and others." The articles look at things like eTwinning, success factors. More...
(Re)Presenting Community 07
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. (Re)Presenting Community 07
OK, it's official. I do not have good video editing software for the Mac. I know that may seem astonishing, but I have to say, the stuff I was using on Microsoft - from MovieMaker to Camtasia to everything in between, worked much better (ie., worked) and much more smoothly. Mac's iMovie 08 is a disasterous piece of software - it is unstable, it assigns audio tracks to the wrong clips, it is slow, and it is stupid. Final Cut Pro, which of course does everything, in fact does nothing, or at least, nothing I want it to do (such as, say, preview a video without taking 10 minutes to render it first). Snapz Pro worked pretty well as a screen capture tool, without the limitations of Jing, and managed to create a 5 gig video without crashing, but is a lot more awkward to use. So the USQ audience is still without a video - one does exist now, and I'm going to try to clean it up and get rid of the echo before posting it, and then see what I can do about getting NRC to give me a good Windows machine for video editing. More...
News From the Community
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. News From the Community
The UNESCO Open Educational Resources (OER) community - which very annoyingly and controllingly shuts down its mailing list when it decides it has heard enough from the rabble - has opened up a wiki that (presumably) will be persistent. "If you have information that you wish to share with the community, then this is the page for you. It could be: an upcoming conference, new publication on Open Educational Resources, news about an OER initiative or capacity development activity." More...
GoXchange student app launched
By Viggo Stacey. GoXchange, an online community network seeking to support exchange students by connecting them with peers at the same study destination has been launched to give new exchange students “first-hand advice” about life in their new home. More...
The Truth About Learning Communities
By Steven Mintz. A learning community can be an administrative convenience: a way to register students into a block of classes. Or a learning community can be something more: a cohort of students that shares common intellectual and co-curricular experiences, organized around a common theme, a career goal or a series of big questions. More...
Lancement communauté des professionnels acteurs OF
Synthèse des interventions lors du lancement de la communauté des professionnels de la formation de Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, le 12 septembre 2019. Plus...
Listes communautaires : phénomène ou chimère ?
Alors que les prochaines élections municipales se tiendront les 15 et 22 mars 2020, la question des "listes communautaires" est récemment revenue sur le devant de la scène : ces listes, dont la définition varie selon les points de vue, sont parfois présentées comme une atteinte à l'unité de la nation, et un encouragement au communautarisme. Plus...
I Love My Communities
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. I Love My Communities
Nancy White responds to one of my comments on communities. "Surely sameness characterizes many communities. But I think 'sameness' is not quite the right word in my most vibrant communities. It is some shared love." Of course - this is a type of sameness, and a case where sameness carries an emotional connection, about which I've commented elsewhere. Emotional connections are good - they support families and sports teams. But if you exclude people because they don't love the topic - that's not rational, is it. More...
Communities of Practice - The Patent
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Scott Wilson[Edit][Delete]: Communities of Practice - The Patent, December 11, 2006
Yes, you read that correctly. I'm sorry. As Scott Wilson observes, "It essentially patents the idea of doing any kind of community-oriented knowledge management involving filesharing and forums involving one or more experts." How long before this becomes a full-blown crisis, and not the absurd annoyance it is now? Or are we at that point now, with absurdities like the Blackboard patent and lawsuit? See also Harold Jarche, who comments, "I remember a sign that was posted in the Officers' Mess in Wainwright, Alberta. It said, 'Let not common sense become so rare that it is mistaken for genius. More...
