Knowledge Networking

I had the joy of presenting with Jeff Nugent at the POD Conference this year, on a topic near to my heart. How can the magic of Web 2.0 tools better support teachers (and the people who support them)? We were proposing some scenarios for POD to pool reources and foster collaboration. What I originally thought would be a hinderance (lack of internet connectivity in the hotel meeting rooms!) turned into a plus. Jeff and I really had to think through what we wanted to present and then use screen captures to simulate live internet. We had over 50 people join us for this session, and people seemed very excited by the idea of something like “PODapedia” and PODpodcasts. Jeff and I still like the notion of working on social bookmarking tags…
Today I noticed this post by others who are thinking about the same topic over at the Teaching and Learning Commons and it made me think that there are all these pools of resources, pointed toward slightly different audiences who have overlapping members and overlapping interests. I wonder where this is all going… It makes me think of my favorite spoken word poet, Rives and his poem about the internet–how we all wish it was “more organized” but at the same time, to say that is to misunderstand the very beauty and nature of the internet. It is like trying to mash 10 dimensions down into 1.

Still, POD needs to get in there and be a part of this collecting and collaborating.  Faculty Development people are great networkers and great collaborators.