The next "Foundations of Communities of Practice" workshop starts soon -- on January 31st! It's an extraordinary experience for many people (including the organizers: Etienne Wenger, Bronwyn Stuckey and I -- and a wonderful bunch of guest speakers and mentors who generously contribute their time and expertise :-).
In the past we've only scheduled one workshop at a time, scheduling "the next one" only when we were finished with "the current one." I think the upcoming workshop is the 17th, but the intention to keep offering them has always depended on an on-the-spot answer to the question, "Does it actually work to simulate a community the way we do in the workshop? Could it possibly be worth the rather immense effort it takes for presenters and participants? Are we actually developing a larger community by offering this workhsop?" Well, mostly the answer to those questions is, "Yes!" So, partly to schedule it well in advance for a group of students from Royal Roads University who take it as part of a graduate course we've gone ahead and scheduled it for three fixed dates this year, since it also seemed that planning ahead would be helpful for some people who have a specific budget for their professional develoment. So this is another experiment: we've scheduled the workshop to start on January 31st, May 9th, and October 3rd. If you know of anyone who would be interested in it or benefit from doing the workshop, please let them or me know.
With all the effort that goes into producing it, we're always on the lookout for feedback about what worked and what didn't. Shawn Callahan recently wrote me that the workshop had influenced his thinking and is writing on the subject on his new site:
http://www.cpsquare.org/edu/News/archives/2004_12.html
More details about the workshop and the registration form are here:
http://www.cpsquare.org/edu/foundations/index.htm
Posted by smithjd at January 15, 2005 09:34 PM | TrackBack