Unit 3. Tools for Communities of Practice (CoP)

Annotations:

• CoP: Groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.

1. CoP
   1. Shared domain interest
   2. Shares activities, information, discussions...
   3. Members are practitioners: develop resources and way of addressing problems
   4. Areas
      1. Problem solving
      2. Requests for information
      3. Seeking experience
      4. Reusing assets
      5. Coordination and synergy
      6. Discussion developments
      7. Documentation projects
      8. Visits
      9. Mapping knowledge and identifying maps
   5. Other names: learning network, thematic groups, tech club
      1. Where are they applied?
         1. Organizations
         2. Government: education, health, security, administration...
         3. Education
            1. Internally (inside school)
            2. Externally (out of or working with other schools)
            3. Lifetime (beyond schooling period)
         4. Associations
         5. Social sector
         6. International development
         7. The web
   6. Examples of CoP related to language and IT matters
      1. For teachers and researchers
         1. Webheads (Yahoo group)
         2. Open virtual courses: CALL (Computer Assited Language Learning)
            1. EuroCALL
            2. ReCALL Journal (accessible via UNED)
         3. E-learning topics in Spanish
            1. CUED-L (Cátedra Unesco): about distance learnning education and other matters
            2. AESLA (Asociación Española de Lingüística Aplicada)
            3. AEDEAN (Asociación Española de Estudios Anglo-Americanos)
            4. LTSIG (Learning Technologies Special Interest Group)
      2. Others (not only for teachers)
         1. LinguistList (a distribution list)
         2. The Literature Network
         3. Red Iris Lists
      3. For students of foreign languages
         1. Busuu
         2. Duolingo (gamification)
         3. The mixer (VoIP)
         4. Living Language (by Penguin Random House)
         5. Language learning social networks
            1. Busuu
            2. Italki
            3. Lang-8 (focused on writing correction)
            4. My Happy Planet
2. CMC (Computer-Mediated Communication) tools to create CoP
   1. ACMC (Asynchronous CMC): not in real time
      1. Blogs: Blogger, Wordpress, LiveJournal
      2. Microblogging: Twitter
      3. Wikis: Wikispaces, PhpWiki, PBWorks
      4. Social networks with academic and professional aims (highly recommended for transfering and generating knowledge)
         1. General matters: Facebook, Ning, Google Communities
         2. Professional social networks: LinkedIn, Xing
         3. Academic social networks: Academia, Research Gate
   2. SCMC (Synchronous CMC): communication at the same time
      1. Instant Messaging (IM)
         1. Classics: AOL, ICQ, Microsoft IM (now Windows Live), Yahoo Messenger, Skype
         2. Mobile: WhatsApp, Facebook IM, Telegram, Viber
      2. Multiprotocol IM (support accounts from different IM clients: Trillian, Digsby, Pidgin (open source)
      3. Web conferencing software for webinars (web seminars): require proprietary license (except BigBlueButton by Mozilla)
         1. Blackboard Collaborate (recently bought Wimba and Elluminate)
         2. Adobe Connect
         3. AVIP (UNED)
         4. Google Hangouts (videos stored in Youtube)
         5. Spontania