Taking CoP (Communities of Practice) to Moodle

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1st Slide – Title PageMy name is Ala and I am from the Centre for Flexible and Distance Learning otherwise known as CFDL. I will be co-presenting with my fellow CFDL collegue, Javed Yusuf. Vice Chancellor, Professor McPhee, DVC Kelly and fellow USP Collegues, our presentation today is looking at the CoP – Communities of Practice and its activities and how its objectives can be further enhanced in a virtual environment and we will be focusing specifically on a tool in the virtual environment that we are familiar with here in USP - and that is Moodle. If we were to look at how CoP aligns with our USP’s Strategic Plan 2010-2012 Priority Area 1: Teaching & Learning, it can indeed provide a very effective mechanism in meeting the three objectives under this priority area as follows:Improve the quality of academic programmesand ensure that they are highly regarded locally and internationallyEnsure USP programmes continue to be relevant and responsive to the needs of the region and to the region’s integration into the global economy.Improve the quality of teaching in all campuses.

2nd Slide - OverviewThis is an overview of what Javed and I are focusing on in our presentation. We will begin by looking at some background information on CoP followed by a presentation of examples of how Moodle have been used to build Communities of Practice (CoP) at USP.

3rd Slide – What is a CoP?I will begin by saying that many of you are already familiar with this term and in fact the phenomenon is age-old although the term Communities of practice is of a relatively recent coinage according to the literature as expressed by Etienne Wenger a leading scholar in the study of Communities of Practice. I may also add that much of what I will be presenting on is based on the work of Etienne Wenger.What is a CoP? Definitely not a police officer from Central Police Station in downtown Suva but a CoP are: Groups of people whoshare a concern or a passion for somethingthey do and learn how to do itbetter as theyinteractregularly. It must benotedthat not everythingthatisreferred to as a communityis a community of practice for instance the USP community. There are 3 characteristicsthat are crucial in determiningthis:This first is : Domain A CoPis not merely a group of friends or a network of connections between people but its identity isdefined by a shareddomain of interest for example the shareddomain of interestfor the Network of Pacific Educatorsotherwiseknown as NOPE is -Education in the Pacific.The second characteristic of a COP is : CommunityIn addition to pursuinginterest in theirdomain, members engage in joint activities and discussions, help eachother and share information. In otherwords, besides sharing a domain of interest, itis the collabarativeactivitiesthatmembers of a CoPundertakethatmakeit a community. Having the same job or titledoes not make for a community of practice unlessmembersinteract and learnfromeachother. The keywordhere are : Learning & Sharing And the thirdisPractice : Members of a CoP are practitioners - contributors. Membersdevelop a shared basket of resources ; experiences, stories, tools, ways of recurringproblems= shared practice.

4th Slide – What is a CoP?If I may summarise these in three words, a CoP is essentially engaged in:Co-learning, Co-nnecting and Co-lloboratingAnd the common thread herebeing, SHARING

5th Slide– Now let us look at the kinds of activitiesthat a CoP engages in :The first is, ProblemSolving – e.g. How can I create groups withinmy course in Moodle ? I’mstuck…..

6th Slide– Anotheractivitythat a CoPmaybeinvolved in is in Requesting for information - e.g. Wherecan I getexamples of rubrics to assess online discussion forum participation ?

9th Slide– Anothercommonactivity in Discussingdevelopments – e.g. What do youthink about assessingGAs in your programmes & individual courses ?

11th slide– Reusingassets – e.g. I have a powerpoint I used for a class I recentlytaughtwhichmayjust fit yourpurposes, I can sent it to you and youcaneasilytweakit for yourown use. So often I hearutterancesfromwithinmyowndepartment and across the university about not havingenough time, workisjusttoomuch – reusing/repurposingassetscan do a lot in helping us manage time better

13th slide– A CoPmayalso engage in mappingknowledge and identifying gaps for e.g. in relation to curriculum mappingexercisesthat are conducted in ourfaculties. The questions thatwemayneed to askis, Whoisteachingwhat, and what are wemissing ? Whatotherschools or facultiesshouldwe talk to ?These are the kinds of activitiesthat a CoP are engaged in and now Javed will show youexamples of how Moodle has been used as an instrument in enhancing or furthering the objectives of any type of CoP. Havingsaidthat, Moodleis one of manytoolsthatcanbeused to create and build a CoP in the virtualenvironment – there are otherssuch as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even email.

Clearpurpose – whatwillitbeused to do?Creating a safe & trustedenvironmentcore group of active participantsBeingmotivatedKnowing the needs of participantsHaving a clear action plan withactivities to meetneedsBlending f2f & online activitiesThis can all beachieved by good, active facilitation

Taking CoP (Communities of Practice) to Moodle

Alanieta Lesuma-Fatiaki

Taking CoP (Communities of Practice) to Moodle