CSU Interact enabling a community of practice

CSU Interact enabling a community of practice Catherine Newell & Linda Ward Charles Sturt University, Learning & Teaching Services Sharing practice in the Faculty of Education

Situating the Faculty of Education
Geographically disbursed faculty
Historically working as campus based schools
Context changed
Cross campus and faculty courses and teams
Flexible/blended CSU strategic goals
New platform CSU Interact
Need for whole Faculty approaches
Faculty level Learning & Teaching Committee

Our Goal or vision
A distributed community of practice mediated by technology, with CSU Interact as both the place & means for the community to interact alongside & complementary to formal work and existing structures.
AuSakai Conference 2009

Twin challenge
How do we move from school based CoP to a distributed Faculty CoP?
How do we build capacity in Flexible/Blended approaches & use technology to support this and our strategic goals?

What could Interact contribute?
Exemplars of Innovation and Flexible Learning Working Group EWG proposed:
an Interact site to support the L&T Committee and working groups
a Sharing of Practice Showcase on the site

Faculty of Education Community of Practice Domain – Identity defined by a shared interest & passion in learning & teaching Community — members engage in joint activities & discussions, share information & build relationships. Practice — Practitioners sharing resources & stories to address learning & teaching problems AuSakai Conference 2009 Distributed CoP - unable to rely on face to face meetings & actions as primary means for connecting members Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder (2002) .

Building a community of practice
Establish the showcase & process for collecting & presenting exemplars of innovation & flexible learning
Virtual seminar on ePortfolios

Tools enabling our CoP Wiki Announcements Resources Test centre Forum
Other tools;
Audio files
Screen capture software
Let’s look at the Showcase site….. Site stats AuSakai Conference 2009

Features of a successful CoP AuSakai Conference 2009 Image source: http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/communities_of_practice/

Features of a successful distributed CoP
Communication - technology used is an accepted form of communication & allows a higher level of personal interaction.
Culture in the use of technologies exists.
Purpose - correlation between the technology and the aim of its use.
Campbell & Uys (2007). AuSakai Conference 2009

Issues AuSakai Conference 2009

Conclusions
Interact has the potential to enable a CoP by providing a place & the means to communicate.
However, other factors impact on the success & effectiveness of a distributed CoP
Future directions
Investigate through FLI fellowship
How can the Faculty of Education develop a successful CoP in a distributed technology mediated environment?

References
Wenger, E. (2006). Communities of practice a brief introduction. Retrieved September 6, 2009 from;
http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm
Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: a guide to managing knowledge . Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Campbell, M. & Uys, P.M. (2007). Identifying factors that influence the success of ICT in developing a learning community: the CELT experience. Campus-Wide Information Systems (CWIS). Emerald, UK, 24(1).

CSU Interact enabling a community of practice

by AuSakai on Sep 25, 2009

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