I’m constantly amazed by not only the volume of information available for free on the Web, but the sheer diversity of it. One of the true powers of modern ICTs is their ability to unite people with common interests – even if that interest is highly specialised.

My son Joe is training to be a commercial pilot. I’ve always been interested in aviation too, so we’ve had some great fun with Microsoft Flight Simulator X. He bought a Saitek Pro52 Joystick and throttle kit and then a set of rudder pedals. Every so often, we lug all the gear from his room into the home theatre and fly using the projector – it’s pretty cool.

One of the neat things about FSX is the ability to support multiple monitors for different displays, so we tinkered with that. I was looking for some information about how to configure them when I came across the Simpit community – a group of people engaged in building a replica cockpit, complete with realistic displays and controls. Example. We looked at each other and decided it might be fun to try. I got in contact with a couple of schools who were getting rid of CRT monitors and got a stack of those and we have started building. You can follow our progress on the Echalk Ning.

What’s interesting is that there are perhaps 200 or so people in the world who are doing the same thing as us. Through forums, blogs and wikis we have the facility to contact with most, if not all of them. I can’t imagine tackling such a specialised project without the expertise of these people – pilots, flight engineers, instructors, software developers and amateurs like us. Everyone has something to offer and seems only too glad to help.

It’s not just us, people are making music, software, hardware, electronics, video, film and TV, joined by technology to a community of practice that couldn’t have existed a few years ago. Every day I get tweets from people doing workshops for teachers around the world asking for people to say “Hi” via Twitter and noting the amazing responses that happen almost instantly.

What are we doing to harness the power of these connections?

What are you doing?

J

Image citation : http://www.flickr.com/photos/paas/565935526/  Christian Paas photostream