Building Trust in Online Communities

by Barbara Bray, Learning Strategist

There usually is one manager of an online community. The manager can be called a community manager, a team manager, or an eCoach. The members of your community will need to trust you to feel safe in your community. Here are seven tips to ensure a trusting relationship with the members of your community.

1. Personalize your Community

Ask your community members to fill out their profile, add a picture, and share information about themselves. Encourage members to introduce themselves right away in the discussion forum. Personalize all communications you have with each member. If you send out automated emails, use a program that includes their first name at the beginning of the message.

Feature different members or projects weekly. If your community is still small, try to keep track of a few of the people a week and promote what they are doing. If your community is large, it is difficult for one manager to select and feature members. Encourage different members manage a welcoming committee so the community builds on its own. Continued...

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Interview with Seth Godin about Education and Change

by Barbara Bray

I was one of the lucky few who was given an advance copy of Seth Godin’s book: Linchpin: Are you Indispensible? His book hits home for me especially involving education.

To see all of the interviews, go to http://www.squidoo.com/the-Linchpin-Posts.

I asked him how his ideas fit with schools today and how we can better prepare for our students’ future:

Q. Since I work with educators, I am curious how you see teachers leading this change to more of a gift-giving and artist model? How do you see teacher education in the future as it relates to this model?

Seth: Teachers are the key to the whole deal. All successful people I know can name one or two or three teachers that had a huge impact on them. But why three? Why not thirty? Why is it that the rest of the teachers were competent at giving exams and getting us to do well at those exams, but didn’t teach us enough to change us? Continued....

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Disrupting Schools in the Midst of a Revolution

by Barbara Bray

It seems like everything, including education, is changing. We’re in the middle of a revolution and may not even know it. Change is difficult for many teachers, parents, administrators and students that want to continue the status quo. Let me define what I mean as status quo for education:

A top-down system where teachers teach the set agenda with standards, tests, and text books. Each teacher is assigned a classroom where they usually close the door and teach their class in isolation. Schools start around 8am and end around 3pm. It is rare that the schools are used before or after schools now because funding is limited. Students sit in rows, answer questions that are asked of them by the teacher, write papers that only the teacher reads, and attend a school that may not have all the classes they need to meet their requirements for graduation.

Does this sound like your school? Are you okay with this system?  Continued...

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