CIO+Recommendations

//​​ Recommendation One //

Write a concise, clear Statement of Purpose. Define and describe the who, what and why of the community, paying particular attention to teachers’ professional development needs. Consider that incorporating social networking into teachers’ professional development would serve a two-fold purpose: it would promote a learning community for teachers fostering improved practice and it would also provide “the tools to learn about the tools” (Solomon and Schrum, 2007, p.104).

//Recommendation Two //

The following issues should be taken into account when deciding which social networking tools are most appropriate for teachers’ professional development:


 * Cost – set up and maintenance


 * Training requirements - requires an awareness of the current skills of the staff and knowledge of their familiarity with different types of online communication. It is important that teachers’ are supported by relevant, ongoing training support for the chosen social networking tool. Who will provide this? What will it cost? 


 * Usability – navigation, access, design


 * Privacy issues - personal details are secure and not available to third parties


 * Security


 * Stability


 * Technical support and availability - choices of technologies used by the social network must 'ensure that all users will be able to participate with the equipment they own, and that software is intuitive, straightforward, and pleasant to use (Preece, 2000)


 * Media sharing capabilities

Several different social networking tools were investigated. Results for some of these are given below:

Second Life (Virtual World)  >   Twitter > “Twitter lets you find out what your friends are doing in whatever way makes the most sense for you. ” Retrieved []
 * Although it’s free to visit, to establish an ongoing base for professional development, an organisation would have to pay for “premium” access (eg QUT Island cost QUT US$3,000 in 2007 – half establishment costs, half an annual maintenance fee). Staff also need ongoing access to funds so they can to purchase objects in L$, ie administration costs need to be considered as well as the cost of maintaining an island in Second Life.
 * Space can be private or public
 * Not specifically designed as a learning environment
 * Use of Second Life involves a substantial investment of time in both construction of the environment (IT specialist skills) and training of participants
 * Some new users can suffer from extraneous cognitive load, eg may find it difficult to learn how to navigate around
 * Technical challenges, eg need sufficient bandwidth and computational power to use the environment Fosters sense of place, presence and community
 * Learning experiences can resemble real world experiences, eg role play
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Ideal platform for dynamic, active engagement, collaborative projects, knowledge sharing. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">One great advantage of Second Life is that it uses synchronous chat which enables immediate communication with colleagues. Logging tools allow a record of everything that was said in text chat to be kept.
 * Cost: Twitter is able to be used by anyone who registers for a free account at twitter.com. Twitter is available on all computer platforms or operating systems. It functions with any browser and uses little bandwidth.
 * Flexibility: Many third party applications using the Twitter program have been created to allow users to check their twitter updates. Some of these allow for greater search functionality or more organization of updates or followers. Users are able to group who they are following using some of these third party applications.
 * Privacy: Even though Twitter is usually used in the public domain Twitter accounts are able to be set to private by using the ‘protect my updates’ settings. This ensures that users profiles and updates are not in the public view.
 * Mobility: Twitter is able to be accessed on mobile devices such as iphones and itouch. There are twitter widgets that update messages on blogs and other websites.
 * Ease of use: Twitter is easy to use. Lurkers, those who don’t tweet are able to benefit from following the tweets of others. This is important in a staff group as there isn’t the requirement that all participants are comfortable with contributing online.

Facebook
 * Cost: Facebook is free to anyone once they register for an account. Like twitter it runs on any operating platform.Bandwidth requirements are not high and even with accessing pictures the cost doesn't rise as the images are compressed. If you use Facebook mobile you will be charged 15c permsg and 75c per picture msg.
 * Flexibility:“Facebook is simplifying the user experience on the home page by introducing Top News and Recent Activity streams. Now, when users log on to Facebook for the first time i​n a while, they will see the most important stories that they missed while they were away. From there, users can navigate to the real-time stream and toggle between both views throughout their sessions. In addition to making it easier for users to view content that is most relevant to them, this change also speeds up the time it takes for the home page to load and makes birthday reminders more prominent,” Facebook“http://news.softpedia.com/news/New-Details-on-the-Upcoming-Facebook-Redesign-124779.shtml
 * Privacy:The user has control over their invformation. There default privacy settings limit the information displayed in the users profile.
 * Mobility: Tou can do anything you can on Facebook with your mobile phone. Access and manage your profile, seach for friends add new friends. Use the text messaging feature to send messages, poke friends and write wall posts. Uploading pictures to online albums is simple with Facebook mobile.
 * Ease of use: Very easy to use once set up. Twitter feed can be incorporated into Facebook.

//<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> Recommendation Three //

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Use social networking tools in conjunction with other Web 2.0 tools: blogs, wikis, podcasts, video lectures. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">With so many web 2.0 tools available to support social networking it's important that any chosen social networking site supports either the integration of such tools or the ability to link to them. Web 2.0 tools provide a richer professional development experience for all participants. The following issues regarding the linking or integration of Web 2.0 tools with social networking sites need to be considered by all stakeholders. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> > Many of these tools are very similar. The decision around something as simple as which video conferencing tool should the group adopt, creates more questions than answers. How many users will it sustain simultaneously? Does it allow access to a work area where users are able to share documents, presentations or online media? Does it allow users to communicate with rules already built into the system such as queueing for commenting? (used very effectively in Webex, Elluminate and Flashmeeting programs) Is there scope for saving or logging the communication between members so that this information can be accessed later or by members unable to attend the event? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Second Life, for example, is not a knowledge management tool and requires <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">​the parallel development of tools such as blogs and wikis which store information.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Added technical resources eg: bandwidth, infrastructure and maintenance may need to be considered for effective synchronous communication.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> With the amount of Web 2.0 tools available to support professional development and the members of a social network group, it's important that decisions are made about which tools best complement the 'Statement of Purpose' (cited in Recommendation 1).
 * Web 2.0 tools and supporting technologies integrated into the social network need to support the variety of communication tasks required by the community.

Twitter integrates extremely well with other Web 2.0 tools. It allows users to add links to their tweets. Many tweets provide links to updated blogs, podcasts and other websites or tools. Users are able to access current information from blogs, podcasts etc… as soon as those links have been posted on Twitter. Twitter clients, those programs that have been created from the Twitter program have added a lot more functionality to Twitter.

//<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Recommendation Four //

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Develop a sociability plan to sustain the community

Preece says you need Purpose, People and Policies
 * Purpose- clear purpose defined so that users can see goals of the community. This will encourage only users who share common ground and empathy which then establishes a social presence and thus trust.
 * People- Access to the community should be restricted to teachers and students to sustain the community as a school community only. Some access could be provided to families too.
 * Policies- Guidelines developed and enforce to sustain positive behaviour.

Preece suggests that policies are best developed early on in the life of the social network community with all stakeholders participating in their formulation. These policies need to be flexible enough to develop as the community evolves. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"> //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Recommendation Five //
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Registration policy should be clear to all stake holders. The decision as to whether the community is open or closed, the policies that support the community’s purpose and whether moderation is required needs to be an integral part of the sociability plan.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"> Levels of moderation need to be considered (as pointed out in the above point) Online moderation supports the rules created by and for the social network. Members could also be supported by moderator(s) with online help and guidance.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Evaluate the success of the community. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;">

General indicators of success will include (Barnett, 2003, pp.6-7):
 * an impact on student learning, eg the redesign of classroom instruction and/or a change in the learning environment, from the teacher as the director of learning to the teacher as a facilitator of learning
 * teacher renewal and enthusiasm
 * increased teacher collaboration

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Although it’s possible to predict the success of an online community by “by taking the time to assess the participants’ needs beforehand” (Preece, 2000, p.300), evaluation should be used to both influence how the community develops (formative evaluation) and to determine its effectiveness after development (summative evaluation).

Evaluation techniques should be a combination of those needed to understand both interaction design (usability) and sociability and, in order to be as comprehensive as possible, they should be able to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. Consideration should be given to using ethnographic evaluation techniques such as questioning through the use of tools such as questionnaires and interviews; to observation of the community as well as to well known quantitative data gathering techniques such as data logging and metrics.

Due to the changing, volatile nature of the Web 2.0 environment it's recommended that evaluation be ongoing: "Because online communities are evolving continuously, developers must accommodate changes by regularly revisiting sociability and usability decisions" <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">( Preece, J. and Diane Maloney-Krichmar, 2002).

References: Barnett, H. (2003). //Technology professional development: Successful strategies for teacher change. ERIC Digest//. Retrieved October 15, 2009, from ERIC database. (ED477616). Preece, J. (2000). //Online communities: Designing usability, supporting sociability//. Chichester: John Wiley. Preece, J. and Diane Maloney-Krichmar (2002) Online Communities. In J. Jacko and A. Sears, A. (Eds.) //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook //, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc. Publishers. Mahwah: NJ. 596-620. Retrieved September 2, 2009, from __http://www.ifsm.umbc.edu/~preece/__ Preece, J, Maloney-Krichmar, D. (2003) Online Communities. University of Maryland, Baltimore Supporting sociability to sustain the community Solomon, G. and Schrum, L. (2007). //Web 2.0: New tools, new schools//. Washington: ISTE.