One statement from Wenger that really stood out to me is was "Because the negotiation of meaning is the convergence of participation and reification, controlling both participation and reification affords control over the kinds of meaning that can be created in a certain context and the kinds of person that participants can become." The reason this statement attracted my attention was because teachers often have a great deal of control over both participation and reification (note I did not say total control realizing that school boards, parent groups, (students?), and administrators do have substantial control over policies and curriculums, but I still believe that teachers determine much of which, and to what extent different policies and curriculums are implemented) in their classrooms. Therefore, in most schools today teachers control much of the meaning that their students can create and may have a strong influence on the kinds of people they can become. Obviously, I hope, this means that teachers need to realize that they have this control and to use it to maximize their students' potential.
I believe that with Web 2.0 and other technologies will increase the number of boundary objects between communities of practice in and out of the school for many years to come. For instance, the school district where I student taught last semester maintains a website. This site has information that can be used by a variety of communities of practice. There is information about making copies that faculty may use. There is information about technology which teachers, parents, and students may find helpful. Information regarding individual schools is available as is information about individual teachers' and their curriculums. In fact, weekly assignments are posted by every teacher and, I think, the school is installing a new program that will enable parents to access their child's updated grades by visiting the school's website.
This website also facilitates interaction between the different communities by providing contact information for the faculty and administration. With the increasing amount of information there will be more boundary encounters between the schools, parents and other stakeholders in the community. This is going to mean that teachers will need to provide justification for how they choose to wield the control they possess over their students. Yet, one more reason to attempt to maximize every students potential.
Reminder: Teachers Control Meaning and Influence the Kind of People Their Students Become
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Nice examples of boundary objects that your school is using to bridge the gap between teachers and parents and other individuals. It makes me think of categories of tools that facilitate interaction between two or more communities. One of the things I am working through with the curriculum that I am part of developing is what type of tools are needed. Is it enough to post information (website, profile pages, announcements, etc.) on the web or is a tool for communication actually needed? Posting information may help individuals in different communities to understand a different community better or may help them to live vicariously in that community through the web. But this does not enable direct interaction with another community. Blogs and other tools do enable communication but they create a lot of other issues. Who is going to monitor them? How do you structure the conversations? What types of postings are appropriate?
I agree with Steven, I don't think that simply posting contact information creates a community of practice. There has to be some manner of interaction between the teachers and the students and their parents. If the parents use that contact information and get in touch with the teacher either by contacting them by phone, parent-teacher conferences, email, blog, etc. then a community forms. Where I differ from his opinion is the idea of monitoring the communication. I feel the community would police itself with regard to appropriate communication. Doesn't Wenger argue that social norms dictate what an individual member of the community is allowed to post in blogs or discuss in a face to face interaction?
looking forward to thursdays discussion.
Those growing numbers of boundaries can be pretty dangerous in my opinion.
After having the privilege to work with elementary and high school "gifted" programs, the curricular freedom meant that many new techs were starting there first; if the tech-savvy genius kids wouldn't accept it, neither would the overall student body.
But what I also feared was that every assignment or document that went digital, every piece of our instruction that became packaged and available to scrutinize, was just more cannon fodder for a gifted kid's paranoid parents. The few materials we made were only a small shade of what we taught there, but that would become the material that PTAs and school board committees would judge our "expendable" program on.
More opportunities for teachers and parents to communicate outside of an "Open House" is great, but these digital artifacts might be too faithfully accepted and make a teacher look worse (or better) than he/she is.
I agree completely that teachers control meaning in their classrooms and I hope they always will. You propose that Web 2.0 technologies will increase the boundary encounters between schools, parents, and other stakeholders in the community. In the school districts where parents already participate in their children's education, I can see how this will be an extra nuisance for teachers. The phone calls from home may increase two-fold. However, think about the benefits for the school districts with no parental participation. One of my student teaching experiences was in a middle school in Trenton, NJ. A lot of parents in the school did not put an emphasis on education and rarely if ever contacted the school or teacher. Perhaps Web 2.0 technologies will help change these districts. Perhaps the new boundary objects will increase parental support and increase the emphasis on education in urban districts.
You suggest: "With the increasing amount of information there will be more boundary encounters between the schools, parents and other stakeholders in the community." However, I move to question the significance of volume in your statement. Though more information may cause more boundary encounters, it does not necessarily imply that the encounters will be of quality, or add to the production of communication and meaning-making within, or across, communities of practice. Simply making available a large amount of information may have the same effect as making none available at all, but communicating information that is relevant, accessible, and usable seems far more productive and meaningful. Finding balance of meaningful information involves community-driven design and content (co)authoring. To make a school website a meaningful, well-worn tool of communication requires a move away from institutionalized control of knowledge and its transmission and a move toward practicing community as something that is of, by, and for the people about which community occurs.
While web 2.0 might affect the teacherparentcommunity boundaries (good or bad), I think the greatest potential lies in the increased interactions between similar classes within the same school and also the greater academic community of other schools across the globe. Broadening one classes community of practice (20 to 30 students) to include other classes in other schools in other states and countries will provide for (IMHO) a vastly more meaningful experience.