If I don’t say this all the time I should because I sure think it a lot! I’m so grateful for my membership in CPsquare, and especially the partnership between SCoPEand CP2 to organize quarterly field trips together. Well, after I typed that I immediately wanted to add also especially the monthly “my practice” series where I learn so much from other community of practice leaders.

Normally for the quarterly field trips John Smith and I invite community stewards to talk about their CoPs and sometimes walk us through their online spaces. This time we did something a little different; we watched videos about communities. John describes it well and has captured the experience on the CP2 blog:

“The idea is that our field trips have tended to focus on communities that are formed intentionally, often looking at them through the eyes of someone who’s leading or trying to cultivate them. The videos we select would be of communities that are “found” and observed from the outside but are interesting to us for one reason or another.”

This turned out to be a very interesting experiment, and valuable exercise in thinking about what we can learn about CoPs [Communities of Practice] from the outside, and useful and meaningful ways to look at CoPs together. It was also an opportunity to explore new technologies and processes for organizing online activities.

To learn more about Sylvia’s virtual field trip, including the process of planning the event, and the video of the event itself, head over to the full Hanging Out and Watching Videos post.

Excerpted from the latest professional development post on Sylvia’s web site, reprinted under Creative Commons license.