Exploring the potential of Communities of Practice and UMI technologies to enhance STEM learning
Name: Michelle O’Keeffe
Website: https://communitiesofpracticeforstem.wordpress.com/
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michelle_O_Keeffe
Description:
My PhD project is titled “Exploring the potential of Communities of Practice and UMI technologies to enhance STEM learning”. The aim of my project is to explore the role Communities of Practice (COP) and Technology can play in stimulating the learning of STEM subjects in secondary schools and to explore the use of UMI technologies (Ubiquitous Computing, Mobile Computing and the Internet of Things) to enhance learning in the classroom and strengthen the communication between members in a COP. The most common Communities of Practice definition in use today is Wenger’s description and it reads “Communities of Practice are groups of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” (Wenger, 1998) UMI technologies represent the most recent and explicit attempts to move computer technology beyond the confines of tool usage towards a more pervasive penetration of life. The key research questions as part of my project are: What defines a Community of Practice? What are the key characteristics of a Community of Practice? How do we engineer and build a successful COP? How can we support communication & collaboration between stakeholders in a COP?
Funding:
This work is funded by the H2020 project Umi-Sci-Ed [71083]: Exploiting Ubiquitous Computing, Mobile Technology and the Internet of Things to promote Science Education. My PhD is supervised by Trevor Hogan and Kieran Delaney in the Human-Data Interaction Group at Cork Institute of Technology, Ireland.
