Welcoming New Members into a Community of Practice - Caren Levine

IDRAC 2012 Presentation - 5:00 pm PDT, August 3, 2012

Caren Levine is a consultant specializing in educational media and technology at Etheoreal and is Director of the Learning Network at Darim Online. Her areas of interest include communities of practice, online learning, professional development, and the integration of social media for educational and non-profit organizations to assist them in doing their work in more connected ways.

Caren has completed course work toward her doctorate in educational technology at Teacher College, Columbia University, focusing on online professional development, and has taught graduate level courses online and face-to-face. She volunteers as a Reading Buddy at a local public school and enjoys hanging out at small airports. She is know as Claird Loon in Second Life and served as the Lead Docent at ISTE in SL.

Successful communities begin small, then grow and thrive. To do so, they must find ways to incorporate new members. Community growth is a process of mutual adaptation. Not only must the entering new member adapt and integrate, but the community will change during this growth process as well.

Levine comments, “How we welcome new members into our communities can be full of nuance and complexity.  It is an opportunity to think about the moment when we felt a part of a particular community and to develop a way of facilitating this process.  Of particular interest to me is how the integration of new members can reflect the community’s values and help tell its story.”