Publications

Collaborative Technology: Using Web 2.0 to Advance Staff Development

Originally published online by Education Week

Cecilia Cunningham & Susan Restler

Collaborative Technology

ABSTRACT

Emerging generations of teachers will bring their Facebook communities and digital ways of securing information and contacts to their practice as seamlessly as they now use e-mail. Through technology, they will be able to solve problems for themselves, find and give help to others, and develop and pass along new ideas. The process could be thought of as just-in-time knowledge generation combined with community support, and it has become possible only with the advent of Web 2.0, todays broadened and enhanced online capabilities.

Actors and Factors: Virtual Communities for Social Innovation

Susan Restler and Diana D. Woolis

Actors and Factors   Actors y Factores

ABSTRACT

Virtual communities of practice (COPs) are fast becoming a basic work unit in a networked world. The relationship between COPs, Knowledge Management, and the Learning Organisation is a question of priority for social sector leaders, researchers, policy makers, and practitioners as they seek to establish ways to maintain relevance and effectiveness in the volatile environments in which they work. When well executed, virtual COPs produce results because the knowledge is stewarded: organised for learning, poised for action, and planned for sustainability. In this paper, we document and analyse the actors and factors that, in our experience, contribute to success: Enlightened Leadership, Compelling Work, Appropriate Technology and Knowledge Sustainability.

The Revolution Is Online: Two Polilogue Case Studies

Susan Restler

The Revolution Is Online

ABSTRACT

Over the past two years we have worked with new online communities of practice in the public and non-profit sectors. Some communities took off, exceeding the goals they set out to achieve. Several didn't -- but the process still had beneficial effects on the organization and the team. And for many, it was somewhere in between. "The Revolution Is Online" explores how the successes prove the power of this approach to knowledge management, and what the underperformers suggest about setting the parameters for investment.

Human Services Dot Net

Policy & Practice, December 2003

Diana D. Woolis and Susan Restler

Human Services Dot Net   Servicios Humanos Dot Net

ABSTRACT

The human services field is fueled by knowledge. Insights into how human service programs work and why practices succeed or fail rests in the experience of exceptional practitioners. Systematically organizing agency staff to leverage knowledge remains a challenge, though. How can an agency make the best use of knowledge that its employees possess?

Between a Rock and Cyber Space
Nonprofits, Knowledge, and Technology

Diana D. Woolis

Between a Rock and Cyber Space   Entre una Roca y el Ciberespacio

ABSTRACT

Technology is moving beyond the mere crunching of data to connecting people and what they know. Survival is increasingly determined by the successful development of organizational knowledge assets --the facts, experience, and insights garnered from work. These public knowledge assets are at risk of being privatized, colonized or cannibalized.

Discourse Analysis and Role Adoption in a Community of Practice

Co-authored by Doris Reeves Lipscomb

discourse.pdf

ABSTRACT

This paper describes a discourse analysis project which studied learning through engagement in a seven-week online workshop. The workshop was an immersive community of practicebased experience, cultivating learning in a largely asynchronous environment. The paper identifies a range of theoretical frameworks currently available for online discourse analysis, and documents the processes involved in using the selected framework to examine higher phase learning in the online workshop. The paper also describes the contemporaneous development of a framework which analyses the roles adopted by participants in their discourse. The paper reports on the relationships of the levels of social interaction and role adoption to self reported aspects of meaningful learning.

A Near-Term, Human-Based Approach to Capturing and Disseminating Program Knowledge in the Nonprofit Community

Gary G. Hendrix

hendrix.pdf

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the near-term feasibility of providing technological and organizational support for the use of knowledge assets that result from service delivery and policy implementation in the nonprofit sector. It posits that the key to near-term progress is not to invent new artificial intelligence technology for the public sector. Rather, the key is to apply existing technology and human resources in a new way. In particular, progress can be made using the new generation of collaborative workspace tools now entering the market in conjunction with a new type of knowledge worker, a worker who aids nonprofit practitioners in gathering, organizing and distilling content.