Week 10 - Question 1

How might Wenger's notions on practice communities relate to Prensky's on education?

Wenger says that 'Communities of practice are 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.' http://www.ewenger.com/theory/ The concept of a community of practise, to me, is reference to the process of social learning. Wenger talks about how communities of practise can help us better ourselves through education. i suppose a benefit of CoP's is that people are communicating with each other, which leads to a better understanding of education.

Prensky states 'Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach' http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf which brings up to notion of digital natives and digital immigrants. It could be argued that both the natives and immigrants come from different CoP's. The natives and immigrants have different goals, different passions and certainly a different understanding of education and social learning.

So i'd say that Wenger's notions on practice communities links to Prensky's notions on education by the educational native, immigrant divide being linked to different CoP's as well as specifically being different CoP's.