Samspil: A good example of a Community of Practice

sep 16 2016 in Fréttir by Hróbjartur Árnason

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„Communities of practice, is a theory that formaly describes what everybody already knew happens. That people who do stuff together learn from each other… in various ways. … we might just be talking about the group that gathers around the coffee machine at the office, essentially communicating about the stuff they do, and are thus funcitoning as a community of practice.“

Tryggvi Thayer a project manager at the „Education Plaza“ at the Icelandic University, School of Education described how a concept, which developed over a number of years around teachers interested in learning together how to be better at their jobs, teaching languages, teaching maths, teaching science etc., was implemented on a large scale to support teachers in using Information and Communication Technologies to support student learning and their teaching.

This innitiative based on ideas from the theories of sittuated learning and communities of practice, „Samspil 2015“ (e. interplay, to jam or play (music) together) turned out to be a very successful way of mobilizing teachers to learn more and learn together how to implement ICT to support their student’s learning.

The innitiative was based on an alternation of face to face meetings and workshops often using the form of „educamps“ and online collaboration and sharing on the site’s blog, facebook groups and on twitter.

Resources:

The educational plazas: http://menntamidja.is in — in english

Educamps: http://www.edcamp.org/

Educamp introduction: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/about-edcamp-unconference-history

The Samspil initiative http://samspil.menntamidja.is

Tryggvi’s Slideshare page: http://www.slideshare.net/tryggvibt

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