re: KM & KM

About this list Date view Thread view Subject view Author view

fred nickols (fnickols@ets.org)
Wed, 26 May 1999 22:32:36 +0200 

From: "fred nickols" <fnickols@ets.org>
Subject: re: KM & KM
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 22:32:36 +0200

List address to send message to everyone: ifets-discuss@LISTSERV.READADP.COM
Details of current discussion: http://ifets.gmd.de/discuss.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Responding to Philip Duchastel, who wrote...

>fred nickols wrote:
>
>> I can see clearly why instructional systems design might not be such a
good
>> fit with CoPs but, as noted above, I also think CoPs should be of
interest
>> and relevant to IFETS and its members.

>Isn't 'communities of practice' just a new term for 'old boys network'?
>How about that for counterpoint? Personally, I believe this whole
>business of West-coast CoPs, along with apprenticeship and all, is a
>distractor away from learning as a truly individual psychological
>process. Isn't CoP just social organization / organizational structure?
>Important in its own right, yes, but not learning. Agreed?

I'll agree that "communities of practice" is a social/organizational
structure, however, I'll also assert that such structures provide a context
and afford the occasion for much individual learning. (I also happen to
believe that individuals learn, organizations don't, but that's a horse of
a different color.) Last: No, I don't believe "communities of practice" is
just a new term for "old boys network" (although in many instances it is
simply a new term for networks that have been around a long time). The
"old boys network," as I understand it and as I have experienced it, is a
power brokerage, not a learning or a problem solving mechanism (except as
those two functions are involved in power brokering).

Fred Nickols, Executive Director
Planning & Development
Educational Testing Service [23-E]
Princeton, NJ 08541
Tel =3D 609.734.5077 Fax =3D 609.734.5590
e-mail =3D fnickols@ets.org

Views expressed are the author's, not ETS's.
-------------

---------------------------------------------------------
Forum website: http://ifets.gmd.de/
Forum's contact person: kinshuk@ieee.org
Info on Join/Leave List: http://ifets.gmd.de/maillist.html
---------------------------------------------------------

About this list Date view Thread view Subject view Author view

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Wed 26 May 1999 - 22:30:01 MET DST