Reference: Barab & Sequire (2004). Design-based research: Putting a stake in the ground. The Journal of the Learning Sciences. 13 (1), 1-14.
The authors of this article are trying to make the case for design-based research (DBR) as distinctive from other research designs such as traditional psychological experiments or evaluation.
Several characteristic of DBR are presented:
· It is interventionist – it includes procedures to be implemented
· It develops in a naturalistic setting
· It is repetitive with feedback being incorporated into further refinements of the procedure
DBR is considered different from traditional psychological experiments in several aspects:
· It is developed within the “real world”, outside of the laboratory
· The context is taken into consideration
· It involves multiple dependent variables
· The design is flexible and subject to revision
· The social interactions are considered
· The participants are treated as partners by the researcher (co-participants)
What sets apart DBR from formative evaluation, although similarities have been pointed out:
· Constant connection with theory
· Potential to generate new theories (it is used to advance theory)
· “The context in which the DBR is being carried out is the minimal ontology for which the variables can be adequately investigated” (p. 5).
The most important difference, the authors point out, which separates DBR from other theory oriented research is that DBR has to produce “demonstrable changes at the local level” (p.6). Context is again extremely important for this kind of research; it emphasizes changes in the context “as necessary evidence for the viability of a theory” (p.6). The declared goal of design-based researcher is “to directly impact practice while advancing theory that will be of use to others” (p.8).
Narrative is one way of presenting DBR. The article, however, does not discuss alternative ways of making sense of DBR.
An interesting section of this article refers to the notion of replicability of DBR. The argument is that since the cultural context of the research is pretty much set, it becomes difficult to replicate a design-based study. “Providing rich description of the context, guiding and emerging theory, design features of the intervention, and the impact of these features on participation and learning”, in addition to describing the research design, constitute an approach that make the process visible to other interested in replication.
One of the challenges of DBR is that the researcher is not only observing the naturalistic context but she is “causing” the interactions in this setting. The whole idea of DBR seems to be that the researcher is supposed to intervene whenever is possible so the intervention is refined. The claims of the DBR should however acknowledge the researcher’s impact on the context. Thus the findings should be generalized with caution.
After reading this article, my questions are:
· Where does design-based research stand in relation to qualitative research and quantitative research?
· How different is it really from an iterative program evaluation?
· What are other ways of making sense of DBR than narrative?
· What kinds of questions does this type of research answer?
Monday, March 9, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
More resonating with distributed cognition
Reference: Karasavvidis, I. (2002). Distributed cognition and educational practice. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 13 (1/2), 11-29.
Karasavvidis' (2002) article on distributed cognition (DC) helped me better understand this concept.
This author argues that DC is a “set of ideas about the nature of cognition and how it relates to fellow people and artifacts” (p.13). It seems that DC is not a completely new idea in the cognitive science but rather a revived one.
DC is a different lens for understanding human cognition, which emerged as a reaction to the cognitive science tradition of limiting cognition to what happens inside of the individual’s head. In this tradition, cognition is seen as the property of the individual. Adepts of the distributed cognition framework (i.e., Hutchins, Clark, Nardi, Cobb, Salomon), however, argue for seeing cognition as a “property of the whole system within which the individual functions” (p. 14). The individual makes use of the environment (artifacts and/or fellow individuals) to reduce the cognitive load.
This article identifies two dimensions of distributed cognition: social and material. The social dimension refers to distribution across members of the community, while the material one refers to distribution between internal and external components (i.e., cognitive tools, artifacts). This separation, however, is artificial but useful, as Karasavvidis points out, because the two dimensions can co-exist, as cognition can involve other individuals and tools/ artifacts simultaneous.
An interesting case that Karasavvidis makes is that the idea of distributed cognition can be traced back to Vygotsky’s concepts of mediation of psychological processes by symbols, and cultural development. Especially the social dimension of DC seems to draw heavily on Vygotsky’s view of the “social origins of individual mental functioning” (p.19).
Karasavvidis identifies important implications of DC for educational practice. From a DC perspective, the teaching, learning and assessment practices have to change fundamentally. An educational system which emphasizes individual work and secluded assessment of the students without resort to artifacts is incompatible with the distributed cognition approach.
When cognition is distributed across settings and fellow students, the learning objective need to be reformulated. For example, when using computers to learn about graphs, the emphasis moves from learning to design graphs to learning to interpret the graphs which are easily generated by the computer. Thus, teaching and learning have to be redefined and the curriculum revised to accommodate the new approach to understanding cognition.
Karasavvidis' (2002) article on distributed cognition (DC) helped me better understand this concept.
This author argues that DC is a “set of ideas about the nature of cognition and how it relates to fellow people and artifacts” (p.13). It seems that DC is not a completely new idea in the cognitive science but rather a revived one.
DC is a different lens for understanding human cognition, which emerged as a reaction to the cognitive science tradition of limiting cognition to what happens inside of the individual’s head. In this tradition, cognition is seen as the property of the individual. Adepts of the distributed cognition framework (i.e., Hutchins, Clark, Nardi, Cobb, Salomon), however, argue for seeing cognition as a “property of the whole system within which the individual functions” (p. 14). The individual makes use of the environment (artifacts and/or fellow individuals) to reduce the cognitive load.
This article identifies two dimensions of distributed cognition: social and material. The social dimension refers to distribution across members of the community, while the material one refers to distribution between internal and external components (i.e., cognitive tools, artifacts). This separation, however, is artificial but useful, as Karasavvidis points out, because the two dimensions can co-exist, as cognition can involve other individuals and tools/ artifacts simultaneous.
An interesting case that Karasavvidis makes is that the idea of distributed cognition can be traced back to Vygotsky’s concepts of mediation of psychological processes by symbols, and cultural development. Especially the social dimension of DC seems to draw heavily on Vygotsky’s view of the “social origins of individual mental functioning” (p.19).
Karasavvidis identifies important implications of DC for educational practice. From a DC perspective, the teaching, learning and assessment practices have to change fundamentally. An educational system which emphasizes individual work and secluded assessment of the students without resort to artifacts is incompatible with the distributed cognition approach.
When cognition is distributed across settings and fellow students, the learning objective need to be reformulated. For example, when using computers to learn about graphs, the emphasis moves from learning to design graphs to learning to interpret the graphs which are easily generated by the computer. Thus, teaching and learning have to be redefined and the curriculum revised to accommodate the new approach to understanding cognition.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Resonating with distributed cognition
Since last class I’ve struggled to grasp what distributed cognition (DC) really is. How is distributed cognition different and/or connected with collaborative learning? Is collaborative learning a form of distributed cognition? Where do these concepts overlap? I found some hints on the web that distributed cognition is a prevalent theory in the field of computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL). So that’s a bit of an answer. I wonder though whether the field of traditional face-to-face collaborative learning takes into account distributed cognition.
The clearest explanation so far related to DC seems to be Hollan’s et al. (2001) (as cited by Glenberg, 2006) who lists the three main characteristics of distributed cognition:· Cognition can be distributed across the members of a social group (social distribution)· Cognition can be distributed between internal and external structures (material distribution)· Cognition can be distributed across time, with final products reflecting partial/ earlier products (temporal distribution)
Here http://www.slis.indiana.edu/faculty/yrogers/dist_cog/ I found that distributed cognition is not proposing the existence of a new cognitive process but it’s trying to reframe the understanding of cognition as situated in and spread across social contexts. So, DC is an alternative theoretical perspective in response to the traditional theory in the cognitive science which emphasizes the internal states/ cognitive process and neglects cognition as potentially happening outside of the individual’s head.
This theoretical shift from understanding cognition as a strictly internal process to conceiving it as a possible socially distributed process (from internalism to externalism) seems to (might) be linked to an epistemological turn from constructivism to social constructivism and social constructionism. Constructivism sees the individual making meaning of knowledge within social contexts. Social constructionism argues that knowledge is constructed through social interactions.
Other questions that pop into my head on this topic are: How does distributed cognition connect to discursive ways of knowing? If we look at cognition as a social/ interactional process, how is this similar or not to distributed cognition?
The clearest explanation so far related to DC seems to be Hollan’s et al. (2001) (as cited by Glenberg, 2006) who lists the three main characteristics of distributed cognition:· Cognition can be distributed across the members of a social group (social distribution)· Cognition can be distributed between internal and external structures (material distribution)· Cognition can be distributed across time, with final products reflecting partial/ earlier products (temporal distribution)
Here http://www.slis.indiana.edu/faculty/yrogers/dist_cog/ I found that distributed cognition is not proposing the existence of a new cognitive process but it’s trying to reframe the understanding of cognition as situated in and spread across social contexts. So, DC is an alternative theoretical perspective in response to the traditional theory in the cognitive science which emphasizes the internal states/ cognitive process and neglects cognition as potentially happening outside of the individual’s head.
This theoretical shift from understanding cognition as a strictly internal process to conceiving it as a possible socially distributed process (from internalism to externalism) seems to (might) be linked to an epistemological turn from constructivism to social constructivism and social constructionism. Constructivism sees the individual making meaning of knowledge within social contexts. Social constructionism argues that knowledge is constructed through social interactions.
Other questions that pop into my head on this topic are: How does distributed cognition connect to discursive ways of knowing? If we look at cognition as a social/ interactional process, how is this similar or not to distributed cognition?
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Action and cognition
Reference: Glenberg A. M. (2006). Radical changes in cognitive process due to technology. Pragmatics & Cognition, 14 (2), 263-274.
The purpose of this theoretical article is to make the case for grounding cognition in action and to introduce a theoretical framework for cognition and distributed cognition based on action.
Glenberg reviews several recent experimental studies which demonstrate the connection between action and cognition. For example, in Smith’s (2005) experiment, 3-year old children were given a bulb-like asymmetrical object to play with. The children who had the chance to take action upon (i.e., to rotate) the object were more likely to include more asymmetrical objects in the same category with the object they manipulated than the children who only held the bulb and wave it. Thus the categorization depends “on the types of action they performed with the objects” (p.266). Another study (Glenberg, 2004) revealed that children who were given the chance to make meaning of a story by manipulating toys which corresponded to the story line showed gains in memory and reading comprehension (2 standard deviation grater) than children who only read and re-read the text.
The central idea in Glenberg’s framework of cognition is that “the basic function of the cognitive system is to select the next action” (p.267). The selection of the next action is “a process of constraint satisfaction” (p.267). In his model, the sources of constraint are: environment, body & physiology, emotions, goals, learning & culture and social situation. These all interact to produce affordances. When the action is generated, it will impact the sources of constraint so that “taking one action changes the constraints for selecting the next action and in the process creates a dynamic system” (p.268).
The article proposes this framework as an example of distributed cognition. Glenberg adopts Hollan’s et al. (2001) characteristics of distributed cognition:
· Cognition is distributed across the member of a social group who combine their expertise to create a product which is different from the sum of all contributions.
· Cognition involves “coordination between internal and external structure” (p.268).
· Cognition is distributed across time, with final products reflecting partial products.
To be continued in a later post
The purpose of this theoretical article is to make the case for grounding cognition in action and to introduce a theoretical framework for cognition and distributed cognition based on action.
Glenberg reviews several recent experimental studies which demonstrate the connection between action and cognition. For example, in Smith’s (2005) experiment, 3-year old children were given a bulb-like asymmetrical object to play with. The children who had the chance to take action upon (i.e., to rotate) the object were more likely to include more asymmetrical objects in the same category with the object they manipulated than the children who only held the bulb and wave it. Thus the categorization depends “on the types of action they performed with the objects” (p.266). Another study (Glenberg, 2004) revealed that children who were given the chance to make meaning of a story by manipulating toys which corresponded to the story line showed gains in memory and reading comprehension (2 standard deviation grater) than children who only read and re-read the text.
The central idea in Glenberg’s framework of cognition is that “the basic function of the cognitive system is to select the next action” (p.267). The selection of the next action is “a process of constraint satisfaction” (p.267). In his model, the sources of constraint are: environment, body & physiology, emotions, goals, learning & culture and social situation. These all interact to produce affordances. When the action is generated, it will impact the sources of constraint so that “taking one action changes the constraints for selecting the next action and in the process creates a dynamic system” (p.268).
The article proposes this framework as an example of distributed cognition. Glenberg adopts Hollan’s et al. (2001) characteristics of distributed cognition:
· Cognition is distributed across the member of a social group who combine their expertise to create a product which is different from the sum of all contributions.
· Cognition involves “coordination between internal and external structure” (p.268).
· Cognition is distributed across time, with final products reflecting partial products.
To be continued in a later post
Monday, February 2, 2009
Article review
Viégas, F.(2006). Bloggers' Expectations of Privacy and Accountability: An Initial Survey. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10 (3).
Critique of the article:
This research study investigates the perceptions of blog authors on issues of privacy and liability. Participants in this study are 492 bloggers who took an online survey composed of 34 Likert-scale questions and 16 open-ended questions. Results were reported mainly through descriptive statistics. Some correlations are also provided. The participants’ answers to the open-ended questions were analyzed and a summary of their content is provided.
The sample of this study has the following characteristics: 63% of the participants were male bloggers; 46.3% were 21-30 years old; 59% were college graduates and 31% attended graduate school; 79% were Caucasian.
Interesting findings regarding blog audience were reported. The bloggers pointed out three main strategies of learning about their audience: comments on their blog, access logs, and links (trackbacks and referrer). Interestingly, there was no correlation found between the frequency of checking access log and the feeling of knowing the audience. Thus, the bloggers who reported checking the access logs did not reported knowing their audience better.
The findings also reveal that bloggers’ perception of their audience does not always reflect the actual audience. The participants’ perceived audience was smaller than the actual audience. This perception is thought to have important implications for online privacy. Thus, the perceived smaller audience could be connected to a tendency to reveal more information on one’s private life. Yet, there is no evidence provided in this article for such a connection. In addition, the article does not discuss strategies of recording the actual audience of the participant bloggers.
Surprisingly, no correlation was found between the frequency of revealing personal info on the blog and the blogger’s attitude towards the persistence of their posts. Thus, those bloggers who post more private info do not necessarily worry more about their entries being maintained online over time.
Although some interesting findings are reported, the article has several flaws. The purpose of this article is not very clearly stated. In addition, the article does not provide information on the statistical procedures employed for data analysis. The sample was large yet the sampling technique did not involve randomization but snowball which is considered a disadvantage in terms of generalizing the findings. However, the author does acknowledge this drawback and cautions against extending these findings to the whole blogging population. Instead she provides detailed description of the sample which allows the readers to have a clear image of the targeted population.
Critique of the article:
This research study investigates the perceptions of blog authors on issues of privacy and liability. Participants in this study are 492 bloggers who took an online survey composed of 34 Likert-scale questions and 16 open-ended questions. Results were reported mainly through descriptive statistics. Some correlations are also provided. The participants’ answers to the open-ended questions were analyzed and a summary of their content is provided.
The sample of this study has the following characteristics: 63% of the participants were male bloggers; 46.3% were 21-30 years old; 59% were college graduates and 31% attended graduate school; 79% were Caucasian.
Interesting findings regarding blog audience were reported. The bloggers pointed out three main strategies of learning about their audience: comments on their blog, access logs, and links (trackbacks and referrer). Interestingly, there was no correlation found between the frequency of checking access log and the feeling of knowing the audience. Thus, the bloggers who reported checking the access logs did not reported knowing their audience better.
The findings also reveal that bloggers’ perception of their audience does not always reflect the actual audience. The participants’ perceived audience was smaller than the actual audience. This perception is thought to have important implications for online privacy. Thus, the perceived smaller audience could be connected to a tendency to reveal more information on one’s private life. Yet, there is no evidence provided in this article for such a connection. In addition, the article does not discuss strategies of recording the actual audience of the participant bloggers.
Surprisingly, no correlation was found between the frequency of revealing personal info on the blog and the blogger’s attitude towards the persistence of their posts. Thus, those bloggers who post more private info do not necessarily worry more about their entries being maintained online over time.
Although some interesting findings are reported, the article has several flaws. The purpose of this article is not very clearly stated. In addition, the article does not provide information on the statistical procedures employed for data analysis. The sample was large yet the sampling technique did not involve randomization but snowball which is considered a disadvantage in terms of generalizing the findings. However, the author does acknowledge this drawback and cautions against extending these findings to the whole blogging population. Instead she provides detailed description of the sample which allows the readers to have a clear image of the targeted population.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Amateur manifesto :)
I am so intrigued by Keen’s (2007) book “The cult of the amateur”. Although I’m not a real blogger (I don’t blog except for the purpose of this class) I found very offensive phrases such as “… instead of creating masterpieces, these millions and millions of exuberant monkeys – many with no more talent in the creative arts than our primate cousins – are creating an endless digital forest of mediocrity” (p.2-3). I think his metaphor is completely off and transmits a deep disrespect for human beings in general. So, everybody who is attempting to voice an opinion in a domain in which s/he is not an expert (by the way how does he define expertise?) is committing a moral sin and should be degraded from the human race?! Should we all shut up because we are not “experts”?! Should we all stay mute and bend our head in awe to the mighty “expert”?! This make me think of all the beginners in communities of practice. We are all novices at some point in our careers and our lives. We are not born “experts”, we are not born rocket scientists, chemical engineers or medical doctors but we surely can become one. But how do we learn to be one? Do we do it by keeping our mouth shut and opening it just to take our spoon of knowledge and truth from an expert? Or do we do it by engaging ourselves into dialogue with other novices and experts alike? Do we learn by regurgitating expert content or by thinking and talking about all around us?
It seems that Keen’s perception of the threat of the Internet reflects a positivistic perspective. He advocates the existence of a unique Truth and belittles shared understanding and multiple perspectives. He argues: “Truth … is being flattened, as we create an on-demand, personalized version that reflects our own individual myopia. One person’s truth becomes as “true” as anyone else’s. Today’s media is shattering the world into a billion personalized truths, each seemingly equally valid and worthwhile” (p.17). I’m asking: what is wrong with multiple truths and perspectives? Is the world really shattered apart just because a “simple” mind has a chance to express its thoughts? And how is this threatening the “valid” knowledge proposed by the “experts”? I‘d think that what is valid cannot be shattered so easily. And if something shatters it means it was not so solid after all.
Another annoying idea is that Keen judges all the content-creators on the Internet by the value of the blog content of some of us. There is more to Web 2.0 than trivial blogs and My Space profiles.
The idea of amateurism is somewhat connected to Shirky’s distinction between perfection and perfectability. After all what should we aim for: unreachable perfection or human perfectability? I think that waiting to become “perfect” (or “expert”) and then talking/writing is not constructive if we think in terms of communities of practice whose progress depends on conversation/dialogue/interaction between new-comers and old-times (novices and experts). Perfectability is instead a better frame which describes the new-comers’ goal of contributing to the discourse of the community.
Keen’s apocalyptic vision (i.e., “Our culture is essentially cannibalizing its young, destroying the very sources of the content they crave” p. 28) can be discussed in terms of distribution of power. Whereas in the past, gatekeepers such as journalists and editors detained the power of information, now this is being distributed across users and contents. However, I don’t think power is equally distributed and thus I don’t understand why Keen fears so much this new reality. In this “noise of a hundred million bloggers all simultaneously talking about themselves” (p.16) there still is enough space for professional journalism; the only difference is that there are more voices to compete. Theoretically this is an opportunity for perfectability for all parties involved. Isn’t it?
It seems that Keen’s perception of the threat of the Internet reflects a positivistic perspective. He advocates the existence of a unique Truth and belittles shared understanding and multiple perspectives. He argues: “Truth … is being flattened, as we create an on-demand, personalized version that reflects our own individual myopia. One person’s truth becomes as “true” as anyone else’s. Today’s media is shattering the world into a billion personalized truths, each seemingly equally valid and worthwhile” (p.17). I’m asking: what is wrong with multiple truths and perspectives? Is the world really shattered apart just because a “simple” mind has a chance to express its thoughts? And how is this threatening the “valid” knowledge proposed by the “experts”? I‘d think that what is valid cannot be shattered so easily. And if something shatters it means it was not so solid after all.
Another annoying idea is that Keen judges all the content-creators on the Internet by the value of the blog content of some of us. There is more to Web 2.0 than trivial blogs and My Space profiles.
The idea of amateurism is somewhat connected to Shirky’s distinction between perfection and perfectability. After all what should we aim for: unreachable perfection or human perfectability? I think that waiting to become “perfect” (or “expert”) and then talking/writing is not constructive if we think in terms of communities of practice whose progress depends on conversation/dialogue/interaction between new-comers and old-times (novices and experts). Perfectability is instead a better frame which describes the new-comers’ goal of contributing to the discourse of the community.
Keen’s apocalyptic vision (i.e., “Our culture is essentially cannibalizing its young, destroying the very sources of the content they crave” p. 28) can be discussed in terms of distribution of power. Whereas in the past, gatekeepers such as journalists and editors detained the power of information, now this is being distributed across users and contents. However, I don’t think power is equally distributed and thus I don’t understand why Keen fears so much this new reality. In this “noise of a hundred million bloggers all simultaneously talking about themselves” (p.16) there still is enough space for professional journalism; the only difference is that there are more voices to compete. Theoretically this is an opportunity for perfectability for all parties involved. Isn’t it?
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Perfection and perfectability
One interesting idea that I’ve found in Shirky’s (2008) “Here comes everybody” is that the Internet emphasizes the distinction between perfection and perfectability. As Shirky puts it, “ the goal of getting better at something is different from the goal of being good at it; there is a pleasure in improving your abilities even if that doesn’t translate into absolute perfection” (p.99). As perfection is, I think, unreachable or at least circumstantial, perfectability is a more desirable goal. In Shirky’s view, perfectability translates into simple questions such as “How did you do that?” which is asked/answered in the online communities. A genuine question like that is able to become the starter of conversations between new-comers and more experienced people in any given domain. Either it’s about getting to the next level in an interactive game or finding the best deal when buying a product, online conversation reveals a desire to become better at; it reveals perfectability. I think that perfectability is the engine of learning. To want to be better at something is the prerequisite of learning, isn’t it?
However, the idea of perfectability does not explain by itself the whole process. The intention of the less experienced member of the community is to become better. What about the more experienced one? Is s/he going to become better? Is perfectability a viable condition for her/him? What is providing an answer to the question going to do for her/him? I think her/his trade-off is as valuable as that of the less experienced person. Being challenged to provide an answer produces at least two results: 1) makes her/his expertise visible and acknowledged which is rewarding in itself, and 2) offers the chance of knowledge “refreshing” by discuss it with others and put it on the table to be dissected. In this “dissection” there is opportunity for close analysis, reexamination or validation of knowledge, thus perfectability.
Interestingly, this informal learning that develops spontaneous in online communities has been theorized by Lave and Wenger back in 1991 under the concept of situated learning in communities of practice. Learning is seen as legitimate peripheral participation in a community of practice in which the learner progressively moves from the periphery towards the center. Within this centripetal motion, the learner accumulates knowledge evolving from a newcomer to an old-timer, from apprenticeship to expertise. As a result, the learner is assimilated into that community and adopts its culture, becoming most likely a contributor to its progress. Shirky (2008) who cites Brown and Duguid (2000), discusses some instances of successful learning occurring into communities of practice: the Hewlett-Packard and the Xerox examples. By facilitating conversation between employees through the use of walkie-talkies, these companies fostered the formation of communities of practice which in turn foster learning. This proved to be less costly than the traditional professional development.
Note: I plan to find out more about Brown’s work at http://www.johnseelybrown.com/
Question to be ruminated later: How does perfectability comes to terms with formal standards which are meant to assure perfection within a given territory (i.e., medicine, genetic engineering).
However, the idea of perfectability does not explain by itself the whole process. The intention of the less experienced member of the community is to become better. What about the more experienced one? Is s/he going to become better? Is perfectability a viable condition for her/him? What is providing an answer to the question going to do for her/him? I think her/his trade-off is as valuable as that of the less experienced person. Being challenged to provide an answer produces at least two results: 1) makes her/his expertise visible and acknowledged which is rewarding in itself, and 2) offers the chance of knowledge “refreshing” by discuss it with others and put it on the table to be dissected. In this “dissection” there is opportunity for close analysis, reexamination or validation of knowledge, thus perfectability.
Interestingly, this informal learning that develops spontaneous in online communities has been theorized by Lave and Wenger back in 1991 under the concept of situated learning in communities of practice. Learning is seen as legitimate peripheral participation in a community of practice in which the learner progressively moves from the periphery towards the center. Within this centripetal motion, the learner accumulates knowledge evolving from a newcomer to an old-timer, from apprenticeship to expertise. As a result, the learner is assimilated into that community and adopts its culture, becoming most likely a contributor to its progress. Shirky (2008) who cites Brown and Duguid (2000), discusses some instances of successful learning occurring into communities of practice: the Hewlett-Packard and the Xerox examples. By facilitating conversation between employees through the use of walkie-talkies, these companies fostered the formation of communities of practice which in turn foster learning. This proved to be less costly than the traditional professional development.
Note: I plan to find out more about Brown’s work at http://www.johnseelybrown.com/
Question to be ruminated later: How does perfectability comes to terms with formal standards which are meant to assure perfection within a given territory (i.e., medicine, genetic engineering).
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