The Social Life of Virtual Learning
“Perhaps our generation focused on information, but these kids focus on meaning — how does information take on meaning?” – John Seeley Brown
Early in their seminal work on knowledge management and social learning–The Social Life of Information, John Seeley Brown and Paul Duguid, point out that, “learning requires more than just information, but also the ability to engage in the practice.”
Brown/Duguid further illustrate the active nature of learning by outlining the (action-oriented) steps required for a “newbie” to effectively utilize, integrate, and understand a knowledge base existent within a Community of Practice (CoP) or learning community:
- Become a member of a community
- Engage in its practice
- Acquire and make use of its knowledge
When learners fail to be actively “engaged in the practice” they will, in turn, be excluded from the “local topography” of the practice, as well as the opportunity to “understand the CoP from the inside out”—both of which are crucial in the transformation of information into meaning.
Read more at De Baird