Communities of Practice

Consider the concept of a “community of practice.” How can such a community offer opportunities for learning?

Communities of practice have been up and coming since the phenomenon of websites like myspace, youtube, wikipedia and especially facebook. These sites provide an outlet for users to share media and information that they believe to be interesting or of use to anyone else that is interested. "Communities of Practice are inherently cooperative, and are beautifully supported by social tools, because that is exactly the kind of community whose members can recruit one another or allow themselves to be found by interested searchers." says Shirky on page 101. These communities basically market themselves to others who would like to become involved in the knowledge and share their own thoughts. People can learn great things from communities of practice because they are focused on the exact topic which people are interested in. They are also places where people can share information about certain topics and dispute their opinions on those topics as well.