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a particular interest in using the community of
practice related concepts as the theoretical base
for studying or developing virtual communities
of practice. For example, Rogers (2000) investi-
gated if the interactions among the participants
in an online workshop showed the characteristics
that Wenger (1998) had stated as essential for a
community of practice; that is, mutual engage-
ment, shared repertoire, and joint enterprise. He
proved that the three characteristics were present
and, as a conclusion, proposed some principles
for educators to develop communities: 1) con-
sidering the mutual engagement dimension, he
suggests to structure activities to take advantage
of the learners' previous knowledge and experi-
ence and to foster learners to assume a central
and active role; 2) considering the joint enterprise
dimension, he suggests activities where students
negotiate ways to achieve a certain goal like how
to solve a problem, also activities where different
viewpoints and reflection are encouraged and dif-
ferent forms of participation are allowed, and 3)
considering the shared repertoire dimension, he
suggests that more knowledgeable members of the
community help students to understand the ways
that things are done in the community in addition
to its values, identities and roles.
More recently, Koch and Fusco (2008) part-
ing from the premise that a virtual community of
practice cannot be designed per se, proposed a three
phase approach (Getting Started, Modeling and
Scaffolding, and Maturing) to help existing com-
munities of practice become virtual communities
of practice. The aim is to let a virtual community
of practice evolve naturally by allowing a dynamic
exchange between its social and technological
aspects; although, they recommend consider-
ing the social aspects first. They also propose a
group of ten elements that must be present in an
online community of practice, which I found very
relevant to the objective of the present chapter.
Paraphrasing Koch and Fusco (2008), their guid-
ing principles are: 1) members have ways to share
their understanding and level of commitment to a
specific practice; 2) members' identities remain
constant so that all know with whom are they
dealing and feel safe to do it; 3) members have
forms to share information and ideas; 4) members
can form smaller groups within a community of
practice; 5) members interact using tools and
artifacts in an environment that is appropriate
for their goals; 6) members know who belongs to
the community of practice and who does not; 7)
members have forms to exchange and negotiate
knowledge, support, goods, services and ideas; 8)
members identify with the community, they know
what other members are doing and can express
their preferences and opinions; 9) new and old
members can develop, reproduce, and review the
community's cultural artifacts, norms, and values;
and 10) members, through their practices, can help
the community of practice to evolve.
In another study, reviewing the theoretical
underpinnings of 3D online social environments,
Jones and Bronack (2007) state that discourse
and interaction are basic elements in this type
of learning environment and propose three roles
that some members must have to foster it: 1)
the question-asking person: members can ask
questions to open communication from simple
greetings to more content centered questions to
focus learners attention; 2) the information per-
son: teachers and facilitators can provide expert
advice and consultations, but also peers can share
more general information first and, after some
time, become the experts themselves; and 3) the
support person: some members are always ready
to handle other members' problems, especially
regarding those administering the technical aspects
that affect the functionality of the environment.
Practice Fields
Considering a more psychological, educational
and instructional view of the situated cognition
theory, Barab and Duffy (2000) state that, in
this approach, the unit of analysis is the situated
activities of learners and, as opposed to didactic
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