Wenger and Prensky

Wengers notions on practice communities were that everyone within this community shared the same interests, what mattered to them and was all about participation. This links to Prensky’s views on education, the digital native and the digital immigrant as they shared the same principle of different 'categories' for different groups of people. For example like stated Wenger explained how groups/cofp formed through what mattered to them and participation and this is similar to Prensky as he also 'grouped' digital natives and digital immigrants. Furthermore the digital natives supposedly shared the same 'interests' in that they we able with technology and had their own language. This is similar for the digital immigrants who are also supposed to be in one group of people who not as up to date with technology and struggle to enter and understand the zone of a digital immigrant.
Obviously their theories are completely different however the notions of them share similarities in that they are both based upon ‘grouping’ and the relationships, language and participating within these groups.

6.1 CofP

A community of practice which I belonged to was a section of us that volunteered at the Oxfam vintage shop. The shop big shop for its kind and specialised in high street designers and vintage labels.
Wegner said that ‘CofP develop around things that matter to people’ and this is how our CofP formed. Although you would think that everyone who worked there cared for charity and this is what mattered to them, this was not the case. For some, they worked there to help themselves (I am not saying this is a bad thing, this was just there main interest), help pass time in their lives, some for work experience, however we were there because we wanted the shop to succeed. This was mattered to us, as we all loved helping and loved the shop itself and its clothes as this was what we were all into fashion wise as well.
Also Wenger said that CofP dealt with ‘different aspects of the companies competency’ and this is how we all worked to, as we all worked on the shop floor dealing with tills and presentation as this is what we saw would bring the shop the most success and profit; money for charity. However others would take on other jobs which satisfied their needs and perhaps formed other CofP.
Finally he also said that CofP was all about ‘participation rather than status’. For the CofP I was part of it was all about participating, helping each other and being part of it rather than status. This was firstly because we were all volunteers there to help not to get ‘promoted’ or anything and we had the same values of what mattered to us so participated together in this.