Education for a Digital World Advice, Guidelines and Effective Practice from Around Globe, 2008a

19 – Building Communities of Practice
Notes on Algorithmic Information Theory by Chaiten (1987). Written by Shawn Berney (2005).
Publication
With the emergence of Internet in the home a mere
decade ago, its presence has transformed communication,
entertainment, and research.
Although economic and business principles have
adapted to accommodate electronic commerce, perhaps
the greatest impacts associated with the Internet occurred
when “technology had collided so violently with journalism”
(Gillmore, 2004, para. 19). This collision forever
altered how individuals contribute to the community
consciousness, creating “a conversation in which the
grassroots are absolutely essential” (Gillmore, 2005, p. 50).
From the humble roots of hobbyist bulletin board
systems that supported text-based games, electronic
messaging, and file sharing, conversations began to develop
into communities. These communities, frequented
primarily by local individuals (due to the high cost of
long distance phone service), began to thrive. Today the
need for community planning initiatives is more important
then ever before. “Aggregation is the name of
the game, driving users away from search engines with a
flat and bulky model of the net into the arms of specialist
groupings and community-led sub-nets” (Howse,
2005). As the expectation of individuals to both access
and publish information grows, greater demands have
been placed onto administrators for features that allow
sites to quickly and easily update site content. Today a
wide variety of applications are available for publication,
providing everything from photo galleries to real-time
collaboration of complex documents and projects. 62
“However, inasmuch as a monthly newsletter contributes
to a community rhythm, a ScoPE community
blog (in the works!) would provide more
timely updates. A blog does not reach the same
audience as a community newsletter, so we are investigating
ways to produce and manage both.”
SCoPe Case Study, written by Sylvia Currie
“The Small City site allows for daily/weekly/monthly
email notices of content updates and more re-
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Real-time collaboration software takes many forms and
varies greatly in complexity. Microsoft uses a proprietary
Sharepoint server, while the developer behind Lotus Notes
has released a product called Groove Networks, which synchronizes
individual computers. Within the academic world,
services such as the LearningTimes platform provide interactive
spaces for discussions, audience polls, and whiteboards.
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