The authors have both been involved as designers, producers and facilitators of CPsquare’s Foundations of Communities of Practice Workshop (www.cpsquare.com). Through that ongoing exposure to learning and leading in Communities of Practice (CoPs), they became convinced that stories about CoPs play a crucial role in motivation and learning for community leaders. Within communities, the swapping of stories is a means by which local theories of cause and effect are developed and contextualized. These stories provide powerful ways of invoking context, of framing choices and actions and of constructing identity (Bruner, 2002). From the context of a Community of Practice (CoP) concerned with the cultivation of CoPs, (i.e., the Foundations workshop) there is strong anecdotal evidence that stories are of equal value to practitioners and researchers alike. As part of an extended research activity, and parallel to this growing conviction about stories, Stuckey analysed the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) raised over six iterations of the workshop. The ten most frequently asked questions became the basis of semi-structured interviews held with the developers and managers of the communities described in this chapter. The chapter presents the essence of seven community cases and is intended as an enticement to explore the full case descriptions and community stories (which are beyond the limitations of this printed publication) at http://www.cpsquare.org/cases/.
The implementation of visually-oriented software for graphics support on the high-performance computer graphics hardware at NASA's Johnson Space Center is the latest step in the evolution of an interactive computer applications technology being developed by the Computer Graphics Group at The Applied Research Laboratory of Penn State University. This technology is designed to aid the typical scientist or engineer in learning and using computer graphics productively, including writing his own programs and interfacing to software specialists who will write and maintain his programs. Key aspects of the current development include the creation and incorporation of a visually-oriented learning package for graphics geometric perception and graphics programming, as well as a sophisticated control environment which aids the user in obtaining a quick understanding of and access to the system. Preliminary results indicate that this software support can substantially reduce the startup time for a novice graphics user with some background in Fortran.
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