One of the good things about all this Web 2.0 stuff is that you can pick up things that are really useful and interesting but would never have crossed your path otherwise.
Over at Nick Booth's Podnosh blog he blogged about a new website called Hear by Right. What's this got to do with ruralnet|online? Well, Hear by Right provides a framework to assess and improve the ways of involving young people in their futures.
It's much more than that but they involved lots of new tools like audio and video online and a very cunning mapping tool
.
We have our own map over at the Rural Community Carbon Network but it's not that interactive - you can't add yourself to it, and it's not link to your 'profile' - both things we could think about for ruralnet|online.
It's not just mapping, Hear by Right has a lot of parallels with what ruralnet|online might be - sharing resources, sharing knowledge and experience about what works and what doesn't.
Is there a future in overlapping these services from different websites? Presumably there are organisations listed on the Hear by Right site that are rural - can we share that information across our services? Can you be bothered to register for dozens of sites and hand over/update your presence? Would you pay for the privilege or does there need to be more to it than just a directory - a value to collaboration?
More questions than answers there, sorry about that (just off to Podnosh to post a comment pointing here - that's how it works you see...)
ruralnet|online feed
This web 2.0 malarky really
This web 2.0 malarky really does work well :) As I just got an e-mail from the Podnosh blog telling me about your comment (as I'd posted a comment on PdNosh just before yours and had ticked the 'notify me of more comments box') and helping me find your post here (not to self: must set up Google Alert for mentions of Hear by Right...)
There is definitely potential to join up data from tools like Hear by Right with other spaces. I've realise we don't check at the moment whether entries are Urban or Rural - but that could be a really useful thing to categorise shared learning on the site by - and I've have no problem then providing an RSS feed of latest youth participation resources useful for a rural setting across to others - just as I'd be really interested in to pull in a feed of interesting rural participation resources from Rural net and others onto a page on the Hear by Right site...
I'd be more than happy to share some thoughts about what we've learnt from four years of trying to facilitate shared learning around young people's participation with Hear by Right for Rural Nets thinking - just drop me a line.
Tim