Jennifer Jones

Philip, are you referring to the pedagogy of viral professional development, or using VPD to teach classroom pedagogy? The experiences I share with VPD are mostly referencing instructor PD around eLearning. We do actually spend quite a bit of time talking about classroom pedagogy as well. It is common for instructors to want to fully replicate a face to face classroom when they transition to eLearning. We begin to discuss the differences, but this leads to great inquiry about the effectiveness of existing classroom instruction practices. Many of our instructors have changed the way they teach in the classroom, the more they discover learner-centered approaches, which may, or may not be facilitated through technology.

Last week I started removing myself from several of my Ning memberships because I rarely participate in them. I think people need to have something besides the technology to engage them. There needs to be another connection. Just because people are interested in a common subject, doesn't mean they will necessarily form an active social network.

This group is an excellent example of VPD!
My most recent example involved the Flip cameras. I blogged about it here. Since I made that blog post, another instructor tested the camera, wrote an lengthy review and passed it on to his Dean. That dean passed it on to another dean who passed it to more instructors. It's almost out of control. I tried to go buy a camera today and the local Best Buy was sold out.

Do you have any hesitation with them because you can't post hot links in the discussions? I had an instructor decide to use SharePoint over Wet Paint because of that issue.

I think the key to identifying actual VPD is that it spreads outward, not just linearly. But, it's a made-up term, so anything goes, right?