Task 3b.

After looking at reader three i was left slightly confused by the five theories mentioned, Co-operation, Affiliation, Social construction, connectivism and communities of practise. I knew this task was going to take some time to sink in so i began to read through them and research how they might value my own professional networking and what new perspectives they may give me.

Co operation-
This concept is based on the idea of 'ones successes to others expenses' which is not a way i would ever consider to succeed my self. Robert Axelrod identified the importance of co-operation and how co-operating with others can be beneficial. It can be known as co-operating with others until you reach your maximum benefit from that person/people then start to detach. In a way this is saying use people to get to where you want to be. On the other hand, it can be a case of co-operating to learn a lot from others and this will then help you reach your goals with the support of other people around you. This concept can be perhaps seen in good ways and bad but is a way of using others to learn and develop your own profession with this type of networking.

Communities of Practice-
The concept was used by Lave and Wenger and is known as the idea of communities of people who share the same passion or a concern for something they do. They interact regularly to learn and work on how to do it better. The word community can be interpreted as a few things such as the area you live in right through to perhaps a group of people who meet to practice a hobby. This concept of practice is meant by people you share knowledge/skills and experience. For example my communties of practice would be: Fellow BAPP course students, fellow teaching coaches and staff, dance classes etc. These communities all share the same passions, aims and concerns whether it be working towards completing a course, or to learn and grow with in a dance class.

Affiliation-
I would say this is probably the easiest for me to relate too. Affiliation is based on more friendly terms to allow you to build networking relationships through an informal way - maybe through friends we have performed with or trained with. This is a great way of creating relationships and is a concept i would say is greatly highlighted in the performing arts industry as a lot of us are friends or know of each other which makes learning and gaining knowledge from each other easier. Although with this in mind, keeping social and professional networking separate can become a challenge. It is a concept that performers may need to bare in mind, deciding where the line is between socialising with friends and using it as a professional platform.

Social Construction-
This concept totally baffled me. I came across Alice Sampson's blog where she had posted a you tube video to help the explanation of this- Although it helped i was still left slightly confused. So i am going with how i have interpreted this concept which may be right or wrong (probably wrong.) I would say the use of social media and interactions has the power to fool the world into what ever they want us to believe, for example famous people posting photo shopped pictures which everyone then thinks that is the real them and people really do believe these photos are genuine, This is then resulting in people spending money on cosmetic surgery because they think this is what is desired and what is accepted in the world? Cosmetic companies using photo shopped images to manipulate people into spending money?
Then my second train of thought was because we have been told that the new five pound notes with certain numbers printed on them are worth a lot of money, this is what the world believes even though hypothetically speaking all it is, is a piece of paper that someone has decided is going to be of worth value? This concept is something that really has confused me and i am intrigued into finding out what it actually entails.

Connectivism-
In my eyes connectivism is now the major part of our education/learning. People connect through the web to share their knowledge on pretty much everything. If we want to find something out we simply look online and behind every web page/information site there is a creator who has shared that information (linking back to web 2.0). Not only online but we connect with people on a daily basis taking things from everyone we meet. 'George Siens' said 'we can not not learn, good or bad'. Connectivism is socializing and connecting with other people to allow open learning. I use this already with in my career as a coach, we send videos to explain how our week has gone and things we have learnt which is how as a company we stay connected. This BAPP course is also an example of connectivism as all the students are connected through Skype sessions and blogs to help each other reach the end of the course.

I struggled with this task and i am hoping i have finally got the right ideas from it. Lots of new things learnt and much more to be discovered.