Reaching New Heights with Basecamp: Using Technology to create Communities of Practice

Introduction to Basecamp:

With over 100,000 companies, and more then three million active users, the web-based project-management software Basecamp is an application used to assist teams (Booth, 2019). Companies from around the world use Basecamp to establish teams, both large and small, and then Basecamp allows them to discuss, plan work, give updates, ask questions, share files and more. Originally Basecamp was created for corporate businesses, but it is offered to teachers and students for free. With Basecamp teachers can collaborative with other teachers, create collaborative group discussions between students, plan conferences and service projects, assign roles and responsibilities, organize student groups and sporting teams, and empower students to take control of a project (Hicks, 2014).

Communities of Practice

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger define Communities of Practice as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly” (Wenger, 1998). Not all groups of individuals that form a community become a community of practice. A community of practice has three crucial characteristics: the domain, the community and the practice (Wenger, 09).

The Domain: In order for a community of practice to exist the members of the community must have a shared domain of interest. By being part of the team, a member shows commitment to the domain and shows the value to a collective competence from learning from one another (Wenger, 09). By placing students into a basecamp, they are being set into a domain.

The Community: Once a group of individuals with a shared domain is established, they must then engage with one another (Wenger, 09). For a community of practice to exist, the members must learn from one another. On Basecamp, students can create and participate in discussion boards, or communicate through campfires, learning and growing with one another.

The Practice: In a community of practice, members do not merely discuss their interests but instead the members are practitioners (Wenger, 09). It takes a large amount of time and sustained interaction to develop a shared repertoire of resources (Wenger, 09). On Basecamp students can see who is working on what, what needs to be done and when the deadlines are, keeping the practice moving forward.

Legitimate Peripheral Participation

In a community of practice, the members of the community must practice learning. In legitimate peripheral participation, it is important that students do not only ‘learn by doing’ but instead they learn by participating with experts in the community (Lave & Wenger, 1991). When a new member joins a group, they are assigned projects and jobs based off of their experience. They then lean on members of the group that have worked longer and get the chance to observe how they work and behave. Over time, the new member will be given more complex and complicated projects, as they slowly move from an apprentice to an associated master (Wenger, 1998). With legitimate peripheral participation it is important that the community should be organized in way that is congruent with how people learn in the community of practice (Wenger, 1998). With Basecamp students and members can see who is assigned what topic, they are able to ask questions to a group as a whole or individually, and they see everyone’s deadline. Basecamp does a great job if implemented correctly to help establish legitimate peripheral participation.

Situated Learning

With situated learning, the ability to learn relies on social and cultural determinants instead of an individual’s psychology (Reiser & Dempsey, 2018). Knowledge is accrued in meaningful actions, with the relations of the actions to the culture having a strong impact (Reiser & Dempsey, 2018). The more a newcomer participates, and the more situations they are placed in, the more they will learn and quicker they will grow. With Basecamp, teams can see what assignments are being worked on and also see where the teams are in the timeline. Basecamp keeps a team very open and social, keeping everyone informed but also letting the newcomers grow. Situated learning is very dependent on the social interactions of the team members, and Basecamp allows for the social interactions to take place (Lave & Wenger, 1991). With the use of Basecamp, team members are held accountable with to-do lists and calendars, which helps new members stay motivated. In situated learning, members learn by doing what they believe the experts would do (Reiser & Dempsey, 2018).

Conclusion

With experience using Basecamp in the classroom, I believe it is a strong tool to help keep teams working in a collaborative setting. As a teacher I can assign groups, and then monitor them from a distance with Basecamp as the teams teach and grow with one another. Communities of Practice, which then includes situated learning and legitimate peripheral participation, are hard to establish in the classroom. It is really based for on the job training and internships, so as a teacher it is hard to step back and let the students teach the students. I believe tools such as Basecamp make it easier, because it allows the teacher to observe, watch and participate as a member of the community.

References:

Booth, B. (apr 7, 2019). Basecamp's Jason Fried: 'One of the worst inventions is the the shared calendar' where everyone can steal each others' time. CNBC. Retrieved 2020, from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/basecamp-ceo-fried-warns-shared-calendar-is-sapping-everyones-time.html.

Hicks, C. (2014, March 1). How I use Basecamp in my classroom. Retrieved from http://calebhicks.com/2014/basecamp-free-teachers/

Lave, J., and E. Wenger. (1991). Situated Learning. Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press

Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (2018). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (4th ed.). Pearson.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press.

Wenger, E. (2009). Communities of Practice a brief introduction. Retrieved 2020, from https://neillthew.typepad.com/files/communities-of-practice-1.pdf