The idea was first conceived at a recent meeting of a core group of Salesian webmasters in Córdoba, Spain, but in fact came into being because of the intense interest of webmasters from around the Salesian world who were not at the meeting in Spain but who have been avidly following the topics and ideas under discussion there.
SDBdigital: the brand is clearly identified (SDB) and the “digital” keeps the group focused but broad (all things digital). Webmasters often have technical questions, but the founders of “SDBdigital” are more particularly interested in discussions that might only have technical aspects as a sideline. They are interested in responding to GC26’s priority area of “the ‘playground’ where we need to be present in order to listen, enlighten, guide” (GC26 n. 99), exploring how the Preventive System can inculturate in the “digital continent”, set up a functional community of practice which shares ideas and helps extend essential reflection to make the Web a place where we can educate and evangelise effectively.
The choice, for the moment, of Google Groups as the medium is to create an immediate, accessible and personal access (members can visit the group page but will receive all email correspondence in their own email box), with a view to moving this to a forum, which could also be set up with sdb.org’s AGORA, once the group takes on a degree of consistency and interest.
The first open discussion topic in SDBDigital is how to best form a “community of practice” of which the Group is a manifestation; what are the principles we should establish? Membership of the Group is by invitation from or request to any one of three emails located in Argentina, Europe, the US respectively. The group is able to work in any language - members are encouraged to write in the language they are most comfortable in, and use online translation opportunities to understand posts written in other languages.
Published 07/06/2010
