Assignments ESHA GA Meeting April 1, 2011

Fred Verboon, March 2011

Introduction.

Traditionally, a "community" has been defined as a group of interacting people living in a common location. Since the rise of the internet, the concept of community no longer has geographical limitations, as people can now virtually gather in an online community and share common interests regardless of physical location.

During the last few years community sites like Facebook and LinkedIn have become very successful community sites.

ESHA is in a great position to build a unique community of school leaders in Europe. Communities that are likely to succeed are….

communities in which their members share a common interest. Most school leaders would like to improve education and that is basically the common interest that could drive the community.

Communities in which recognized authorities are involved. The ESHA community could benefit from the involvement of authorities, usually speaker resources.

Communities with committed leaders. Initiators of communities should lead by example. If the initiators will not follow up on new questions and posts, the communities are likely to fail.

Communities with members that are empowered to drive change. If community members feel that new insights could be applicable in their day to day situation, member are more likely to participate and contribute to the community.

Communities that will benefit from a reach within the community. For ESHA. The ESHA Magazine could potentially generate great community awareness.

ESHA is in a great position to build a great community if its leaders are truly committed. Remember that if you do not lead by example, no one will follow you!

The community portal

Based upon the feedback of the General Assembly and the ESHA Board, the requirements of the new ESHA portal has been defined. However, as we have concluded earlier, building this solution in one portal is too costly and it does not take advantage of the readily available and extremely popular social media platforms like WikiSpaces, Vimeo and LinkedIn.

Using these already existing solutions not only enables ESHA to build a solution at minimal costs, it also enables ESHA to increase its exposure to the current members of LinkedIn, Vimeo and WikiSpaces.

The puzzle is made up of the following pieces:

WikiSpaces is a free and very user friendly solution to share and work on files. Users can download, add and comment on files that are stored on this portal. The community members contribute to the content! WikiSpaces may even be a very interesting tool for your school to work on projects or to build your school’s web site!

The most well known example of Wiki is Wikipedia; an online encyclopedia that is maintained by the community members. Wikipedia sites are extremely useful for project and community work. It is the ultimate work-in-progress portal. Once a file is final, the file will be published on the ESHA Web site

Vimeo is a video platform. You can store video and share them with other members. There is a dedicated ESHA community on Vimeo. Vimeo is regarded as a more professional video share than Youtube.

Linked In is the largest professional community on the internet. Facebook, the world’s largest community is primarily focused on young people that share their ideas, thought etc. On LinkedIn you one can set up groups and within these groups one can easily start discussion on different subjects. Large groups generate income because of its popularity.

The ESHA Magazine: The ESHA Magazine may be the most important piece of the puzzle. The magazine could generate traffic to our web site and portals. The ESHA Magazine should be read by 50% of the population within two years time.

The ESHA Web site. The site represents all the finished documents. Some of them build by community members, some by ESHA GA and Board members. It may also contain files of the authorities.

The six themes

Our work is done around 6 themes. 5 themes were identified during the market survey in October of last year, the sixth one was added because it is the most sought after subject on the internet by teachers and because of its sponsor potential.

The themes are:

• Administrative workload• Autonomy of schools• Leadership• Quality of education• Reduces budgets• ICT @ School

Concluding:

The sucess of communities can be measuerd by the number of member that are actively engaged in the community. Large communities.....

• are more influential• attract sponsors• are more effective• are valued substantially

ESHA is in a unique position to build a highly succesful community, however, if the Board members and GA members do not lead by example, the community will probably not be succesful.

Today is the first step in building the community. The main take aways of today are:

Please commit to building this platformo Help increase the number of ESHA magazine subscribers o Start communicating the platform to your memberso Appoint person within your organisation that will be responsible for driving the

community efforts Learn how to use the portal

o Use WikiSpaces and LinkedIno Add content and start discussionso Include our efforts in your communication

Give as much feedback as possible to improve our portal

Assignment 1: Information about your association ( 45 minutes)

The current web site at www.esha.org contains a lot af information that is not up to date. In order to assure that the local associations are presented at the new site, we would like to ask every individual member association to present it self.

Fred has shown you the information and the video that Ton has made. You can also view it at Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/groups/79679/videos or look at the home page at www.avs.nl/esha

Ellen will assist you in making a video. You can do that during the day and or a part of the evening.

The actual assignment that you can do now is:

Prepare Word files with al the information about:• Your association and the information that you would like to include on the new site.• Script for the video which you will be recording later this day. • Profile of your president

After you have finished the files, please send the file to: Fredv@micnederland.nlWe will publish the content on the web site after the GA meeting.

Assignment 2: Content WikiSpace (60 min)

WikiSpaces is a free and very user friendly solution to share and work on files. On Wikispaces, users can add and change files that are stored on this portal. Community member can also add comments. Once a file is final, the file could be published on the ESHA Web site.

The assigment is: 1. Become a member of this WIKI2. Look for relevant content on the web3. Discusses the content 4. Post the relevant content on WikiSpace

Instructions:

Go to: http://eshacommunity.wikispaces.com/

1: become a member of Wikispaces

In order to post files, you must become a member of this Wiki. Press JOIN THIS WIKI at the upper left side of the page

Press CREATE A NEW ACCOUNT Fill in your user name Fill in your pass word Fill in your email address Press JOIN

Now you are a member of this WIKI !!!!

2: Upload a file

Important: you have to be signed in before you can upload a file!!!!

Press the relevant topic on the left side of the page (Now your relevant page will open) Press EDIT (right upper side)

The following screen will appear:

Put the cursor on the position where you want to add your file Press file (middle upper side) Press UPLOAD FILES

Select your file and then press OPEN Your FILE will appear on the top of the files list Click on the file Your file appears on the place of your cursor NOW press save to exit the file upload and to save the changes

Assignment 3: Discussion (45 minutes)

• Look at the files that other groups have published on the Wikispace portal.

• Discuss the files that the other goups have posted.

• Post comments on Wikispaces and the LinkedIn groups

Instructions: post comments on WikiSpaces

Go to our Wiki : http://eshacommunity.wikispaces.com Every page has its own discussion section. So, If youw ant to post a comment on leadership, please first go to leadership page. Make sure that you have signed in Press + New Post and write the comment

Instructions: post comments on LinkedIn

You need to be a member on LinkedIN. Do not worry, there are more than 100 million members! Go to www.linkedin.com Look at the right section, become a member by filling in your Username, E-mail address and

Password

Press Join Now

Build your profile by adding the information you like.(please add your profession, so others can look for school leaders as well)

Press create my profile (this may take a minute or two) Then press profile. You may add relevant info to your profile

After you have saved it and signed in, you will notice that your name appears at the upper right corner of the screen. You are now logged in!!

Look for the ESHA Groups:

You can see the following screen after you have signed in:

Press Groups. (1) In the right box, search for the relevant group (2) by filling in ESHA and press the lookup glass sign at the right

Select to appropriate ESHA Group and press enter You can now start a discussion and post a comment on a discussion that is already open

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Assignment 4a: Reach and objectives

As you know, we are working on 6 themes. Not all themes can be treated the same. For example, ICT@School is quit different from Adminstrative WorkLoad. Suppose that you are the owner of this topic and solely responsible for the results. What do you want to achieve and how do you think the objectives will be achieved. How many resources do you need and what do you want to contribute

Every group discusses: (45 minuten)

Describe the theme, what is the problem? What do you want to achieve with your topic in 2 years time? What kind of activities need to be executed? What kind of budget do you need? What resources are required

Decide who will present the outcome after the break. You can present the outcome the way you like.

Assignment 4b Reach and objectives

Every group presents the group objectives and strategy (10 min)

You may decide how you will present your advice.