Topic 3: Learning in communities – networked collaborative learning, has been an interesting one. I recognised the notion of a community of practice (Wenger, 2010) from my own research in the field of learning in project-based organizations. However, the way it is considered within this field of research – as a tightly knit group with a shared practice and at many times also a shared knowledge base – I had difficulties imagine it as a way of learning online. However, contrasting it to a personal learning network (Kay Oddone) – it started to make sense to me as a way of also learning online. And as usual – I started to consider it in relation to this course I’m envisioning on learning for sustainable development (see my previous posts).

Learning in communities of practices would mean a possibility to solve a real sustainability problem together – not the least since learning is clearly aimed at a specific outcome – the members of the community share a common interest. The shared responsibility for the outcome would also constitute a real possibility for making a change together. As a community builds on known membership and the building of stronger ties over time, it might also constitute a ‘safe operating space’ for learning. But difficulties exist of course – building such strong groups online might be difficult. It might also be difficult to actually share a practice which lies outside the online environment as such – although not impossible. Moreover, there is always the risk for groupthink to develop over time and hence that a mix of perspectives necessary for an holistic view of a sustainability problem (Wiek, et al., 2011) suffers.

Learning in personal, online, learning networks would mean the possibility of being part of a more dynamic environment and a possibility of generating personal knowledge (Kay Oddone). But what possibilities do such personal learning networks offer in terms of collective learning when aims might differ and memberships are neither known, nor stable even in the short run? I tend to see personal learning networks as a way of supplementing other kinds of more tightly knit networks for collective learning. Personal learning networks offer the possibility of bringing diverse knowledge and perspectives to the table in those more tightly knit ones and may hence contribute to strenghten the practice of a community and descrease the risk of groupthink. I imagine that personal learning networks are more easy to access as a consequence of their dynamism.