Educational networks within Queensland can support their professional community activities through an online community website which enables them to: increase awareness of issues build projects and online resources meet online interest others in joining their community share strategies and experiences
Education Queensland staff have two online community
choices: Professional Communities EQ Blackboard communities
Each Professional
community has their own dynamic
website with the ability to create similar areas for their sub-communities.
These websites are accessible from anywhere with internet access
24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
To qualify for your own community you will need to satisfy a set of
selection criteria.
The online community website tools and facilities aid in the community development
process and the achievement of desired outcomes. Community website building
tools include: ability to add content media galleries page notices and polls calendar contact lists document storage and web links secure site control members area
David Potter from
The Netride comments …
'The site is not the community. At the end of the day, it is up
to the people in the community to build the community. The site should
support community-building activities. It is a vehicle for people to
travel to centrally located sources of information and to be able
to add/edit/delete information whether it be text, images, video clips,
panorama images or sound files. Communities are built by people for
people with shared desired outcomes. The vehicles and tools aid in the
processes of achieving the outcomes.'
New Collaborative Online Projects area
The Learning Place Collaborative
Online Projects (COP) area
will provide teachers and students with a place to participate in collaborative
online projects and showcase their work online, communicate and collaborate
with fellow participants, experts and community members.
There are
different types of projects, each with special tools designed to support
learning. Raps - Students discuss books, films or music Travel
Buddies - Soft toys go on adventures Virtual
Field Trips - Students share data about places they cannot go to themselves Online
projects - Students participate in projects developed by schools.
Collaborative Online Projects TIPS
TIPS are Teaching Ideas, Practices and Strategies which are contributed by Queensland teachers. Read the TIPS on Collaborative Online Projects.
EQ Blackboard communities
Education Queensland staff
can apply for a community Blackboard site to build an online network to share ideas and resources and plan
projects. Blackboard communities are available for educational networks
that need
a closed space (password protected) where they can conduct professional
discussions, store documents and manage their community activities.
Blackboard community owners have access to: templates for adding content announcement and calendar tools communication tools resource upload tools
Blackboard community members are enrolled in Blackboard communities
through their Learning Place registration user name and password.
Resources
Online mentoring
Building an online community will be a new way of operating for many
of our staff. To learn about facilitation strategies and ways to
build
commitment and ownership, please participate in our Mentoring
online course. A 6-8 week course for staff wanting to facilitate
public online courses or build an EQ online community.
Useful links Community Governance
The Importance of Common Decision-Making Principles. A well run community initiative requires successful management of
a wide variety of areas including day-to-day operations, information
gathering, finances, human resources, technology, partnerships, and
longer-term community strategy. This resource is provided for people
working on Smart Communities initiatives, but its applicability extends
to every field of endeavour, including e-learning.
Online
Community Technologies and Concepts
Features of contemporary online communities, including reputation
management, collaborative filtering, mailing list management, content
management, categorisation and indexing.
Other languages
The Learning Place