Jay Cross is CEO of Internet Time Group and a thought leader in informal learning and organizational performance. In his 2001 book Kitchen Confidential , Anthony Bourdain describes how he became a professional chef and how he continues to support the community of professional chefs. They carry a set of knives that no one else is allowed to touch. Were it not for this sharing, we would not enjoy the broad, international array of food on our tables. This enabled him to understand the intertwined relationships of ingredients, cooking and customers. MORE >>

To be honest, there's probably very little difference between my description of a learning ecosystem and Etienne Wenger's definition of a Community of Practice : Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. suppose I use the term learning ecosystem as it helps to illustrate the organic, uncontrollable nature of such systems and communities. It may help some people understand how to cultivate the community. MORE >>

Marc is also a member of the CPSquare community and his doctoral thesis “Learning Architecture: an exploratory study of space and learning in work settings and close-to-practice learning&# is the focus in this week’s “Research and Dissertation Series&# of the CPsquare community. The research series is a regularly recurring activity in the community in which a specific research of one of the members is being topic of discourse for a single week. CP2 Research and Dissertation Series. MORE >>

practice communities of practice The idea that learning involves a deepening process of participation in a community of practice has gained significant ground in recent years. Communities of practice have also become an important focus within organizational development and have considerable value when thinking about working with groups. In this article we outline the theory and practice of such communities, and examine some of issues and questions for informal educators and those concerned with lifelong learning. MORE >>

As Ryann mentioned in a previous post, I’m the Community of Practice Manager for Learning Technologies at ASTD. In this role, I engage with the community and help build ASTD’s portfolio of content—from T+D articles to books to educational programs to conferences and beyond. also help foster discussion and debate within the community. Indeed, no area in world of learning is more exciting than Learning Technologies. My current areas of focus are Social Learning, Mobile Learning, and Simulations and Serious Games. MORE >>