Week 9/10 Wenger and Prensky

Wenger’s notion on practice communities relates to Prensky’s idea on education because of their focus on technology helping people learn.

Wenger’s idea on communities of practice and how people work together to reach a shared destination, fits in with Prensky’s idea that technology should be incorporated into learning because of how Digital Natives think because of the impact technology has had on their lives. They both incorporate the idea of E-learning and how this new idea of learning will benefit students.

However, the relationship between both of these theories could be criticised because of both of their assumptions that students are at the same place and will learn effectively at the same time from these technological sources. Both Digital Natives and the idea of E-Learning assume that all students fit into the category and will therefore learn best, there is no discussion of whether this online learning will hinder people’s education because of the lack of real life communications which is needed on a day to day basis in the industry.

Prensky’s and Wenger’s idea also follow the idea of techno-determinism and that we are being shaped by technology because that is what students and communities need in order to function successfully. These definitions both fail to think about societies influence on technology and maybe online communities and E-learning have been developed because of better communication and accessibility, rather than us ‘needing’ to use technology because that is what is decided for us because of the age group we fit into.

Also, both of these definitions fail to consider the negative effects of technology, they just assume that it will be beneficial. The journal (link below) shows that online communities and online learning do not facilitate people with cultural differences. ‘Online education appears to reflect the English Speaking world’s view of its design. Many values remain implicit and opaque to the users of online learning systems’ (Chase et al: 2) this statement and the ideas portrayed in this journal suggest that online communities and online learning sites are not as effective as both Wenger and Prensky believe and improvements still have to be made until technology can effectively help all people learn!

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