Worksite and POP Relationship

Wikipedia is a powerful platform for online information that has been organized in a well-structured manner thus providing a rich set of searching capabilities. Moreover, it is driven by the fact that you have content being created by anyone. The power of community and learning is embedded all over the footprint of this platform. As it relates to my problem of practice (POP), it is closely connected with the end-goals and objectives of Wikipedia. Effective knowledge management in a fast rapidly changing environment requiring individuals to be constantly fending for themselves. The notion of tech intensity is interconnected with the idea of placing the knowledge worker at the front and center of the technology. Clearly, I am seeing the benefits of facilitating a similar solution set as that of Wikipedia, whereby content and portal management of various educational activities are available within the organization.

Knowledge Worker on staff

Observation and Understanding

The observation of Wikipedia was carried out on March 26, 2020. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that has become the authoritative source of information related to millions of articles with support for well over fifty different languages. Wikipedia is hosted through the Wikimedia Foundation which is a non-profit organization (Wikipedia, 2020). Being a non-profit organization allows them the freedom to at least avoid the perception of being influenced by anyone country in the world. What most people might not have observed is that there is a long list of complementary services that are available as part of the Wikipedia educational network. They form a richer set of educational tools that empower users to engage with more extensive information to build their knowledge. To demonstrate, Wikiversity is an open learning community consisting of over 26,000 learning resources on the Internet.

Wikipedia is part of an educational system due to the nature of presenting informative and actionable details to the public. They have developed the facilities to offer enriching educational activities through the repository available. For instance, COVID-19 message has been published which helps drive awareness to individuals visiting the website. Additionally, the Main Page which streams today's featured article along with topics that are blazing in the news. They provide quick information about "Did you know" which ditches out bite-size information for your consumption. In enriching your knowledge there is a dedicated section on "On this day" which is extremely informative by surfacing historical articles related to the actual day you visited the site. Wikipedia Home Page. Reference from https://www.wikipedia.org To conclude, the other areas of Wikipedia that seems like a massive Walmart for knowledge shopping includes community portal, reference desk, village pump, and local embassy all designed in the spirit to further community engagement and learning with a focus on personalization. Case in point is the Community Portal with options for a discussion board, and meetups for members of this ground global online community. Indeed, Wikipedia and all of its assets constitute one of the stronger educational sites in the virtual sphere. Connecting the Readings

As I reflect on the power that drives the Wikipedia platform it reminds me of how loosely coupled organization functions. In fact, the way the platform has been designed is a direct reflection of loose coupling which consists of autonomy (given to anyone to create and edit on the site), localization where individuals are encouraged to author content in their local language, to empowerment and failing fast. All these attributes of educational organizations that Weick (1976) wrote about four decades ago. In addition, Bentley (2009) concludes, "Some of the most powerful educational innovations are disruptive" (p.38), which is precisely what Wikipedia is all about in this era. We have come to embrace the power behind this educational site, and can surely see how they have evolved over time.

Portal and Knowledge Integrations

It is important to always try to pause and see how one can integrate great ideas into their own world. Application of the educational activities and practices forms the foundation of developing best practices. I do realize that Wikipedia is a complex web of information that can certainly benefit the creative thinking on addressing my own problem of practice. At the end of the day, it is about how to apply the effective learning practices observed from Wikipedia into the local worksite context.

References Bentley, T. (2009). Innovation and diffusion as a theory of change. In Second international handbook of educational change (pp. 29-46). Springer Netherlands.

Photo Credit - http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nLoY-l0LANE/UR1buG22tsI/AAAAAAAAXD4/Fth5MlsxSYU/s1600/charles-barsotti-wilson-what-exactly-is-a-knowledge-worker-and-do-we-have-any-on-the-staf-cartoon.jpg Weick, K. E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative science quarterly, 1-19. Wikipedia Foundation. (2020). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page on March 26, 2020