revised issue paper

The reason why I choose Community of Practice as my topic is because that I want to know whether participate so many activities are worthy or not.

There are so many extracurricular activities held in NCU every semester. Including clubs, camps and the activities of their own departments. Almost every student has the experience of participating extracurricular activities. Some people would even have two or three extracurricular activities at the same time. They would sleep at an exaggerate time like four or five o’clock in the morning for preparing for an activity.

I have experienced about four activities after I was received in NCU, including three camps and a activity of my department. A camp held for children studied in elementary school is the first extracurricular activity in my freshman life. For me, it was very special to hold activities, because I just joined the activities and did not know how the activities from zero to a real one. But after so many activities, I feel confused. Because I just feel tired and do not know what I have learned and got. Maybe I did not sense the growing of myself. But I still have some problem about my mind, I do not know why should pay so much and get nothing. Sometimes I would even think that it is waste of time, but I do not want to stay in the dorm all day and play computer. Is it the only motivation for me to join an activity?

I have asked some people who have much experience about activities. They told me that I have to change my mind and build my mind. During the preparing period, it is normal for me to feel tired. But after seeing the happy face of those students who came to join this activities, you would feel that everything is all right. Now I am preparing a camp for freshmen in English department, I hope that I can get new touching!
Review the activities your school offers and listen to other students' experiences to find an activity that meets your needs. Think about your interests, abilities, and time — is your sister tired of playing chess with you? Do you wish you had more computer time? Are you tired of shooting hoops alone? Are you looking to meet friends or get support? Do you need to increase the appeal of your college application? Don't limit yourself to the familiar — try something new.
Think about different roles within groups that you might want to try — president, captain, participant, leader, support person. Each role is important. Being president teaches you leadership and management skills, but involves more responsibility; being a member gives you structure and is less stressful. You can also lend your skills in areas that are needed, such as using your financial skills to be a group's treasurer.
Recalling those activities I have joined and compared with the idea of communities of practice. When I joined those activities, first, we have a leader, and usually there is a secondary leader. Then the leader would divided us in some different groups, all the groups have their specific things to do. And about a week or two, we have to report to the leader what we have done in those days. Each group can be called as a community of practice. When we make discussions, we have the same goals, because we want to achieve the goals, we can make up our minds to make all things in order or even perfect. And take my learning in college as an example. In college, we have many discussions in classes. During the discussions, the members would have brainstorming. All members can share their own opinions and thoughts. And other members even can overthrow what you said, but they have to make their opinions reasonable and make you think their ideas are more constructive than yours. We can get some new ideas through our discussions, those ideas that we may never think of, or because of this idea, our brain would flash into other more interesting ideas.
Sometimes, communities of practice would face a problem that is people may think they are peripheral guys, they may think they are abandoned or have uncomfortable feelings when they participate CoP. Why do those feeling would come from? When we participate in a group, at first, we may be appointed what we have to do by authorities. If we are be appointed some jobs that we think not important at all, or not related much to the core. We may think that whether our authorities think we are not able to do more difficult one.
I have those feelings when I participated in activities. When those bad feelings came to my mind. I would tell myself that what I do today may help me someday during my life trip. And all the experience I have gone through can be a lesson to me. Even though sometimes, I would think that authorities did not respect me, because of this reason, I really want to make all the things in order or even perfect to make other people know that I am the person you want.
The article I put in research and annotations mentioned there are so many choices can be seen in school. It may be overwhelming, but getting involved in new activities with new people is a fun way to challenge yourself. No matter what choice we take, we all have to get involved in what we joined. Because of involving, we can learn what we want to learn. Therefore if we did not pay much attention or not care at all, we got nothing. We all want to get benefits from those extracurricular activities we joined. When we joined those extracurricular activities, we get the chance to explore our physical creative, social, political, and career interests with like-minded people.
Besides, if we want to difference between people, it is a good way to join clubs. Because of joining clubs, we have the opportunities to meet people who are different from you. Those programs can bring youth together. By doing this, we can also learn how to make friends and talk with those people when we first meet them. That is to say how to conquer the nervous when we first step into an unfamiliar place. We can learn other skills we won’t learn in the classroom. On the other days, we may use those skills when we are in working.
I searched on the Youtube about communities of practice. I found this video. (http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=be_k4BH2EvU&eurl=http://beverlyw.blogspot.com/2008/10/community-of-practice.html)This video is mainly discussing about a community of practice in the Internet called NAAE. The narrator is a teacher, so she took educators as an example. She said educators had questions, problems, and great ideas, but they don’t have many channels to share or ask for help. NAAE created a place in the Internet for educators ask each other questions, post resources they want to share with the friends online , help connect each educator.
We all know whatever questions or problems we have , there probably another educator there who has answer or advice. But without NAAE CoP, they don’t know who you are and when you need help. Through NAAE community of practice, they can get together, and discuss together. It is organized, so it’s easy for you to find what you want.
The narrator, Carol, a high school teacher, she has taught for four years. She wants to open some new classes not in her speciality-planting, she wants to know how to teach well, and not let her students in chaos. But she can’t anybody to help her by her side. Then she thinks of community of practice. She posts questions there. In NAAE, she finds so many materials about planting , there are so many advices , and someone even upload worksheets, which Carol can share with the whole class. Because of this, she does a great job in the class. After a semester, she even sets up her own blog for planting.
Even though this video is very like advertising, it reminds us how importance community of practice is. Through our life, no matter what careers we take, we all have problems to ask. Therefore, community of practice in the Internet is a good way for us to let our questions have answers, we can also get other people’s experience, later we can even share our own experience. And in the Internet, those people are from so many different countries. We would not limit ourselves in one corner, special life experience can make our life more colorful.
Communities of Practice is still confusing in Taiwan, so Ministry of Education starts a plan about how to make innovation and knowledge management connected with community of practice. Creativity and innovation have become more and more important, if you are a guy with those talents, you have the advantage to compete with others. But the education in Taiwan now seems not put much emphasis on social education, this make our children know how to study but do not know how to jump out from books. Due to this reason and the force of globalization, Community of Practice is used to stimulate our total creativity and innovation capability.
Many multi-national companies have used CoPs to develop their advantages of competition. Although enterprises are an important part in our society, we can not let our children to know how to progress their ability of social education until they go to the society. It is too cruel and late to know.
When we are in schools, we have to know what things happened around the world, and we have to make our knowledge renew everyday, so we have to keep learning new ideas.
During our life, we have so many chances to meet different people, when we are in different Community of Practice, I think all of us have to seize the opportunities to know the people from dissimilar domain.