For months now, I’ve been trying to figure out how to develop an online community to enhance our programs within the Department of Educational Leadership at VCU.  Currently, each course has its own Blackboard space.  We also send lots of e-mails to students, though sadly we don’t even have good e-mail groups in our e-mail client (that’s pathetic, I know).  So, communication across courses, across programs, and across the years is impossible.  It’s a sad state of affairs, and I’ve spent way too much time trying to figure out the best way to establish an online community for all of our students, faculty and even alumni.

I suppose my biggest problem is that I’m looking for the perfect one-stop solution.  I’m very familiar with Ning and I’ve been playing around with various wiki systems that work nicely as places for collaboration and communication.  Those are fine ways to create a single online community.  One problem for me, though, is that our department consists of many different groups, cohorts, etc. Here’s a graphical representation of our department:

I want each group, cohort, etc. to be able to communicate privately with each other, but to also be a part of the larger community.  So, I could, for example, setup a department-wide Ning and then setup each cohort as a group.  However, the groups within Ning don’t have the full functionality of Ning (e.g. they can’t setup their own document repository or a separate page for anything, really).  And, the groups are not private.

A second problem is that I want to be able keep track of activity with an RSS feed.  But, as you may know, private spaces (Ning, Wetpaint, etc.) don’t allow for RSS feeds.  This limitation also stops me from setting up a Ning or Wetpaint for each group, cohort, etc. and then setting up a department-level aggregate page via NetVibes or Pageflakes (a la Steve Hargadon’s approach here).

So, where am I?  Right now, I’m leaning towards a department-level Ning as the hub of our online community.  From there, I could setup groups for each cohort, group, etc. with a link to a private wiki for each cohort, group, etc. (leaning heavily towards WetPaint for that).  In the absence of RSS feeds, I’ll have to subscribe to each site via e-mail and then setup routing rules so that my inbox doesn’t get flooded.  It’s also going to be a naming nightmare.  But, that’s my best current solution.

If any of you smart people have better ideas, I’d be more than happy to hear them.  Thanks in advance!

Tags: community, leadership, network, Ning, VCU, Wetpaint

On the lighter side (figuratively, not at all literally)…

I had some great eating experiences while in San Antonio for NECC.  It all started Friday night when I told Scott McLeod that I was hoping that the hotel’s continental breakfast would involve my favorite flip-over self-serve waffle irons.  Well, Saturday morning we learned that not only was there an iron, but there were 8 (eight!) of them.  Better yet, Texas shaped waffles!  Does it get any better than this?:

I went out to dinner two nights in a row at the same restaurant, Zuni Grille.  The food there is excellent, so I had no problem going back-to-back.  Saturday night I got to chat with Wes Fryer at length, along with Kevin Honeycutt, Joyce Valenza and others.  It was great to spend time with Wes, in particular, since he’s been networking, learning, teaching for quite a while.  I consider him to be one of the early movers (forefathers?) in the blog/Twitter/Ustream/Learning 2.o network.  Not to be outdone, on Sunday night I got to sit next to Vick “CoolCatTeacher” Davis.  I also consider Vicki to be a real pioneer and a hub within my PLN.  Julie Lindsay was there as well, and I really admire what she and Vicki are doing with the Flat Classroom project.  Thus, I guess you can say that my learning entered hybrid mode this week as I added the f-2-f component.

Sunday night at Zuni brought with it one of the funnier moments of the weekend.  A number of us were VERY hungry (and a bit cranky).  The people at the table behind us arrived after us but were receiving their complimentary chips and salsa before us.  Somehow, the New Yorker in me slipped out and I loudly inquired, “Hey, where are our chips.”  The server, to his credit, quickly responded, “NO SOUP FOR YOU!”  It was witty, funny, etc.  We appropriately dubbed him the Chip Nazi and then took the picture below.  That’s me using my NY sharpened elbow on him.

Good times at NECC.

Tags: food, necc08, necc2008, network, PLN

I’m having a little trouble wrapping my head around an idea, so I thought I’d throw it out to the edublogosphere (hello?  anybody home?).

I’m trying to figure out the best way to support a face-to-face professional learning community with an electronic personal/professional learning network.  So, imagine that in my workplace we have monthly f-2-f meetings to discuss a book or a journal article.  I’m looking for the best way (digitally) to foster additional (synchronous/asynchronous) communication between those sessions.  We could enroll everyone in a Blackboard course, but Bb just isn’t right for that.  I could also develop a Google Space for us.  But, I’m certain that folks don’t want another place to have to “go” to see if there is new information or new communication. 

Is Ning the right answer?  Or, is that overkill?  What is the best way to electronically supplement a professional learning community?

Tags: network, PLC, technology