Knowledge Media for Knowledge Communities. - KMD2003

Overview

Summary

Knowledge Communities are formal or informal groups that are engaged in problem solving and sharing perspectives for the benefit of the collective group. By Knowledge Media, we are referring to technologies that are used to generate and transfer knowledge for practice within the community. Learning and knowledge development happens in knowledge building communities as a result of & nbsp; community members engaging in collaborative and progressive idea building based on a "collective cognitive responsibility".

Knowledge Medium

For online communities, any computer supported communication tool can be used for members collaborations and idea development. Wiki, because of its flexible and collaborative nature can be an effective medium in a web-supported or online knowledge community.

Pedagogical Goals

Examining affordance of wiki as a knowledge medium for practicing collective knowledge building
Exploring students' interpretation of knowledge communities and their respective practices
Practicing knowledge building activities in small groups in both online and face to face settings

Pedagogical Approaches

The process of knowledge building and idea development is time consuming and cannot be modeled in one face to face session. Consequently, extending the discussions beyond the limited time of face to face class meeting appears to increase students chances for practicing knowledge building. Activities for this topic can be divided into pre-class and in-class. Pre-class activities provide a context for face to face meeting by giving students a common ground to collaborate and discuss the issues related to knowledge communities. In-class activities, then, provide an opportunity to evaluate the performance and dynamics of the students as members of a potential knowledge community and how the
communication medium affects the whole process.

Pre-class activities:

This part of the learning activities is done using wiki as the knowledge medium.

Resources and references are suggested to students
To start, students share their understanding and interpretation of what a knowledge community is by providing an example of a knowledge community and describing its characteristics and activities.
Based on the shared instances, students engage in discussion of what constitutes a knowledge community. Guiding questions can facilitate the discussion. Emphasis is on the role of knowledge media in facilitating collaboration and idea development.
The discussion is then guided into developing a categorization scheme that can index the list of knowledge communities shared in the beginning. The categorization will be done iteratively until the students reach agreement on it.

In-class activities:

In-class activities follow up on the online and pre-class discussions.

Class starts with a research-informed discussion about what constitutes a knowledge community.
Students are asked to critically evaluate their online wiki- activities during the previous week in small groups and compare the whole process to the determinant introduced in one of the assigned papers.
Students then reflect on their online experience and evaluate the affordance and effectiveness of wiki as a knowledge medium.

Reflections, Evaluations and Ideas for the Future

Because of time constraints the last pre-class activity, categorizing the knowledge communities, did not progress as much as the facilitators expected. Therefore the in-class activities were modified so that students can engage in collaborative classification and organization of the knowledge communities. Wikispaces proved to be a good choice for online communication because of its flexibility and and also its user-friendly interface.

References and Resources

Mary Bold (2006). Use of Wikis in Graduate Course Work. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 17(1), 5-14. Retrieved September 20, 2007, from ProQuest Education Journals database. (Document ID: 994691291).
Bruns, A; Humphreys, S. (2005) Wikis in Teaching and Assessment: The M/Cylopedia Project, WikiSym '05. Proceedings of the Wiki Symposium Conference, October 16-18, 2005 San Diego, CA, USA: ACM.
Fountain, Rene (2005), Wiki Pedagogy
Lamb, B. (2004). Open Spaces-Wikis, Ready or Not. EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5), September/October 2004, 36-48
Lund, A; Smordal, O. (2006) Is There Space for the Teacher in Wiki, WikiSym '06. Proceedings of the Wiki Symposium Conference, August 21-23, 2006 Odense, Denmark: ACM.
Scardamalia, M. (2002). Collective Cognitive Responsibility for the Advancement of Knowledge. In B. Smith (Ed.), Liberal Education in a Knowledge Society. (pp. 67-98). Chicago: Open Court.
Scardamalia, M. (2006).Online Learning and Knowledge Building Environments

Implementation

Fall, 2007 - Knowledge Media, Knowledge Communities and the 'Silver Tsunami'
Fall, 2006 - Knowledge Media for Knowledge Communities.