Pedagogical praxis: using technology to build professional communities of practice

Abstract

Over the past decade and a half, work in the field of education on communities of practice [20] and/or communities of learners [2] has focused on how individual development takes place within the larger context of the norms and activities of a community. Recognizing this, educators working within the sociocultural tradition have focused on documenting the practices of extant communities [12; 18--20; 35] and/or on ways in which the "community of practice" of the classroom can be improved [2; 25]. Broadly speaking, this work looks at how the traditional intellectual disciplines (such as math, science, and history) are mobilized in the context of real-world practices, or how importing more authentic practices into school settings can develop disciplinary understanding more effectively.