Week Nine - Task 1: Wenger and Prensky's Notions

How might Wenger's notions on practice communities relate to Prensky's on education?

Wenger coined the term ‘communities of practice’ to define “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”. This idea is in contrast to ‘organisational units’ which is a term used for more formal groups, people who have been assigned to be together, rather than chosen.

Prensky’s notions on education are that ‘digital natives’ need new learning concepts due to the technological world they have grown up in. He believes that “today’s teachers have to learn to communicate in the language and style of their students”. Prensky himself favours video games as a method of teaching today’s digital native students.

If you apply Wenger’s idea of an organisational unit to education systems you have the teacher who is in charge of the students; the teacher says what to do and controls the learning content given to the students. However, according to Prensky’s notions the digital native students don’t successfully follow what their digital immigrant teachers are saying; “Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language” (Prensky, 2001).

Therefore, students may create communities of practice away from their teachers in order to learn in their own way, using the internet for example and sharing websites by emailing, instant messaging or texting hyperlinks to each other. If students have friends in other schools who teach in a more ‘digital native’ friendly way, they could create a community of practice to share their ideas.

Prensky, M (2001) “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”, On the Horizon, Volume 9 (5), http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
Wenger, E (n.d.) “Communities of Practice – A Brief Introduction”, http://www.ewenger.com/theory/