Week 3 Blog 6 Communities of Practice

As much as I marvel at the way societies have changed over the centuries due to steel, oil, and the microchip, I also realize that we are still fundamentally the same. Ancient hunter- gatherers needed to work together to trap and kill a beast for food or to teach one another the medicinal qualities of certain herbs and plants. Then the people of various city states needed to agree on some kind of common code or law, like the code of Hammurabi, the first one to unite city-states in Mesopotamia under one common code. The founding fathers of our constitution did what they did as a group. I don’t think James Madison or George Washington, as brilliant and as capable as they were could have done it by their selves. Virtually every endeavor, whether great or small, has been done as a community. The communities certainly had to have leaders like Ghandi or Martin L. King Jr., but the ability to accomplish any task has come from the collective know-how of the group. Even cult leaders need to rely on their members for their twisted purposes. The difference nowadays is that the technologies that are emerging allow us to be the leaders and facilitators of our own causes. Our causes are small when compared to what Rosa Parks did throughout her life, but a community who wants to practice something is not limited to one neighborhood or county. It’s not even limited by land mass and oceans anymore. According to Etienne Wenger, “We all belong to communities of practice. At home, at work, at school, in our hobbies – we belong to several communities of practice at any given time.” (1998). So, why not expand our ability to obtain and share information if it leads to more good for our communities? On the lighter side, I remember my old favorite TV show, The X-Files. Agent Mulder used to go to his favorite trio of friends when something stumped him. They shared information with him and each other face to face in a darkened room with the shades drawn. They also had their own Newsletter called The Lone Gunmen. They were really into conspiracy theories as was Mulder. Imagine what they could have done with Web2.0.

References

Wegner, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning,

Meaning and Identity. Available from http://books.google.com/books?id=heBZpgYUKdAC&dq=communities+of+practice&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=kcoa-l7z5g&sig=OHOEPLtQLqhO2OYpiz-oHHTQlEk&hl=en&ei=gbDwSezJD4GNtgffur2uDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Carter, C. (Creator, Producer). (1993). The X-Files

[Television series]. [With David Duchovny & Gillian

Anderson] 20^th Century Fox Television.