Research on Web 2.0 & CoP

I think this is a terrific resource. It is relatively large as it is someones thesis, but it provides some great insights and even more importantly some concrete data to back its conclusions.

Martin Kloos has written his Master's thesis Comm.unities.of.prac.tice 2.0and made it available on open licence for people like me to read and learn from. Not that I am pretending to have fully absorbed all of it yet...

The goal of the thesis is to evaluate the effectiveness of Web 2.0 technologies, particularly Social Bookmarking, Wiki's, and Blogs, for supporting the learning activities of CoP's. He does this by establishing a theoretical framework which he bases around components of learning architecture proposed by E. Wegner (Communities of Practice: Learning Meaning & Identity. 1998)

He evaluates Blogs, Wiki's and Social Bookmarking for supporting learning in CoP's based on the following criteria:

Engagement - Mutuality, Compotence, Continuity

Imagination - Orientation, Reflection, Exploration

Alignment - Convergence, Coordination, Juristiction

The data for his evaluation comes from interviewing and collating the responses of people (mainly students) who are active in using the technology. Then using the framework established he is able to measure and critique the effectiveness of each tool for learning and supporting CoP's.



He comes up with a number of conclusions, too many for me to go into here, but a couple that have caused me to think harder are:

- "When not applied in a CoP, social software cannot support learning in terms of Wenger (1998). "
While this conclusion is quite specifc in terms of Wenger's framework it has fuelled my growing sense that the social nature of Web 2.0 in and of itself does not necessarily enhance learning. Often it may just contribute to the modern information overload, cheaper social communication or dumbing down of mass culture. Yet the same technonology can be put to great use in specific enviroments with some purpose and structure to harness the information.

-" To cultivate CoP's it is best to start with social bookmarking. Next is is best to adopt group blogging and then to start a wiki."
This conclusion resonates with a discussion I had recently with a friend who teaches some diploma subjects online. He shared of trying to start wiki's on different topics but found students ended up using them as discussion boards more than wiki's. Maybe part of equippng people to particpate in CoP learning online involves a level of explanation of the tools involved, and the ordered introduction of the different tools strikes me as a possible way forward.



Resources
Kloos, M. Comm.unities.of.prac.tice 2.0 How blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking offer facilities that support learning in practice in communities of practice. Masters Thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2006. Retreived on 3/12/07 from http://www.martinkloos.nl/thesis-M.Kloos.pdf