Harnessingculture in Virtual Communities

As the world globalizes students need hands on experience at participating in global communities of practice (COP ) for advanced knowledge creation. This paper discusses the innovative use of the Map, Bridge and Integrating Model (MBI) in a virtual setting. Here students learn to harness cultural diversity in a virtual COP. What the research discovers is that sharing cultural knowledge leads to higher levels of problem solving even in a virtual space. Furthermore, COP is a powerful and exciting way to learn.