For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a Network Learning Space, I encourage you to check out my other blog post “A Tribe Call [Re]Quest” which outlines what they are an why they exist.
My favorite thing to do with a NLS is curate research, especially if you want/need the research to be collaborative. Google + Communities are my favorite medium for these because they can be public or private, and have as many or as little members are you want. I am a highly visual person and the other thing I like about the Google+ platform is you post information you find by copying/pasting a URL and Google uses the metadata of that site to provide you with some visuals to hide an ugly URL string and make it easier for you to find what you are looking for once it becomes full of information.
My goal for these NLSs is not to necessarily keep them continuously updated, since I don’t have the time to be doing so. However, by periodically updating them and mentioning to my peers that they exist, they become a good place for others to learn from and also contribute to. With enough people joining them over time (you can determine if you want people to be able to join and post without a review process or not) a NLS has the potential to become more automated.
My first NLS was made to present materials on online learning and Gamification to classmates in the ILT program at CU Denver. This was something I worked on by myself and since have had a few members join.
My second NLS was made to help me keep track of blogs, websites, and research results that were being uncovered in the realm of 360 Media in eLearning. I mentioned the resource to a professor in the UC Denver program who has an interest in this topic, and he is now a member. I sure hope he posts content in there because a UC Denver professor is a good resource of information.
While technically all of these are works in progress, my third NLS is still very active because I am using it with two classmates as we collect content to help us with our research on Mixed Reality. I set it up similarly to the 360 Media in eLearning site (same topics) and so far it has been a great way for us to be able to keep track of all our content in one place. Since we are still collecting research, this group is private. If the clicking on the picture below does not take you to the NLS, it means we are still in the process of working on this project.