Hello, I am Kristina Thonis and I would like to tell you about Ravallery as an exemplary community of practice. I am a school library media coordinator, but my students just call me their library teacher. I'm also a nitter of some 20 years. Some time ago I made a discussion forum for my students for a school-wide book club, but I wasn't very happy with the level and quality of participation, especially compared to the authentic and meaningful learning that I see occurring in online communities outside of formal education, such as Ravallery. Ravallery is a searchable database of knitting and crocheting patterns. Here you can see just a few Minecraft patterns that I found searching that database. It has groups and discussion forums where members can communicate and interact. This shows several groups that I'm a member of. And it has personal tools for organizing. I can keep track of my projects, my yarn, I even have a library of my crafting books. Ravallery is a good example of a community of practice. According to Eddie and Wenger Trainer, communities of practice are 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. These communities of practice have three main characteristics. The first is a shared domain of interest. Ravallery's domain is knitting crocheting, and for those who are a really hardcore spinning their own yarn. The second characteristic is that they are an interactive community where members learn from each other. This graphic from Ravallery shows that about 600,000 members were active in 2013, interacting, sharing, and learning from each other. The final characteristic is that members of a community of practice are active practitioners. This graphic shows that the members of Ravallery have completed 1,000 tons of projects. If that's not active practice, I don't know what is. Wenger Trainer also lists several activities that communities of practice engage in as they learn and practice together. Ravallery members reuse assets, document our projects, and map our knowledge primarily through the database of patterns. Here we see a pattern for the Carnaby skirt. Not only can I click on the link to this pattern here, but I can also see 846 projects made with that pattern. This is one of the amazing ways that Ravallery members share their learning. Before attempting this pattern, I can look at the skirt in different lengths, colors, with different buttons, etc. This really helps me in planning my own project. Other activities that communities of practice engage in are problem solving, request for information, seeking experience, and discussing developments. This happens primarily in Ravallery's groups where they have discussion forums. This discussion forum from the Amigurumi-Staw-Croshay group has threads for sharing patterns, show and tell, questions about where to buy eyes for your Amigurumi animals, or how to attach limbs securely. A lot of sharing of information going on here. Finally, communities of practice engage in coordinated activities. This is the Nerd Wars group where I participated in a Tournament of Nerdery one summer. Each month I posted projects that met the challenges issued for that month and earned points for my team. This is a fun way for Ravallery members to inspire each other to complete more projects. It also has a charity component. Okay, so here's the important bit. So what? Now that I've briefly introduced you to Ravallery as an exemplary community of practice, why should you care? It goes back to our search for ways to create meaningful, authentic learning communities online. Ravallery provides a useful model that we can use to try to replicate in learning communities that we create for our students. It is also useful for us to recognize communities of practice that already exist and which our students may already be involved in. And finally, it inspires us to find more communities of practice that we can connect our students to to support their lifelong learning.