Week 10 - How might Wengers notions on practice communities relate to Prenskys on Education

There are some aspects of Wenger that can be applied to the work of Prensky. Wenger (1991) described a Community of Practice as 'a set of relations among persons, activity and world, over time and in relation with other tangential and overlapping CoPs'. Wenger studied the ways in which people naturally work and play together. Communities of practice are groups of people who share similar goals and interests. In pursuit of these goals and interests, they have common practices, work with the same 'tools' and express themselves in a 'common language'. Through these aspects they are able to form a community.

This ideology could be related back to Prenskys concepts of the 'digital native' and the digital immigrants'. They both are two different communites. The 'digital natives' have a 'common language' which bonds them all together, they know how to communicate with eachother, they can use technology in the same way and are able to learn. Whereas, the 'digital immigrants' have a completely different language, which puts them into a different community.

Not only this but they both speak strongly on learning. Prensky thinks that the education system needs to be changed, so that these 'digital natives' aren't being taught by an older generation who still believe in structure and endless amounts of books etc. Wenger then would believe that this could be achieved 'learning' an organisation can sustain their communties of practice and 'thus become effective and valuable as an organisation'. Therefore if people learn how to communicate with eachother, change could occur. In 1998 Wenger would describe this through the concept of 'negotiation of meaning'. If a negotiation between a 'digital native' and a 'digital immigrant' occurs, then there could be change.