Learning Conversations

To be honest, there's probably very little difference between my description of a learning ecosystem and Etienne Wenger's definition of a Community of Practice:

Communities of practice are 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.

I suppose I use the term learning ecosystem as it helps to illustrate the organic, uncontrollable nature of such systems and communities. It's an analogy that people can hook ideas onto, rather than a well thought-out theory. It may help some people understand how to cultivate the community.

To really dig into the idea of people learning together in communities/ecosystems, you need to read Wenger's work. Or, at least, first of all read his vignette of life in a claims processing centre. And then watch this video introduction:

Communities of Practice from Multi Media Vision on Vimeo.