Cultivating professional communities of teachers and practitioners through Social Networking Sites

Cultivating professional communities of teachers and practitioners through Social Networking Sites Maria Ranieri*, Stefania Manca**, Antonio Fini* *University of Florence , Florence ** Institute of Educational Technology - CNR, Genoa Italy

Background
The overall background of this study is provided by the SoMobNet Framework:
informal mediated context of learning
changing practices developed by practitioners in the field of education through SNS
where mobile learning meets SNS

Research questions
The research is part of a larger study aiming at exploring the professional uses of Social Networking Sites to cultivate communities of teachers and practitioners. In particular, it intends to investigate the following general issues:
What are the mechanisms characterizing people participation in SN professional groups? [Stellar Issue: Connecting ]
What is the interplay between real and virtual experiences in these groups, and the impact of social mobile practices ? [Stellar Issue: Contextualization ]
How people’s profiles are evaluated to be admitted into the groups? How credibility is established? [Stellar Issue: Orchestration ]

Research design
Study 1 : Exploratory study based on quantitative and qualitative data
Participants: 10 managers of SN professional groups (5 F & 5 M)
Study 2 : A wider survey based on quantitative data and semi-structured interviews
Participants: more than 500 members of SN professional groups
In this presentation the focus is on Study 1

Method
The online survey was based on a three-part questionnaire:
2 closed-ended sections:
participants’ socio-demographic data (age, gender, jobs, etc.)
characteristics of SN groups, such as: 1) purposes; 2) members’ profiles; 3) participation; 4) measures to manage the conflict, etc.
1 open-ended section
participants’ motivations and behaviours related to group management
Time
September-October 2011

Findings
SN manager profile: quantitative data
Average age: more than 40 years
Educational background: 7/10 have a university degree
Job: 5 teachers, 3 freelancers, other
ICTs use: 9/10 have used PC and the Internet since more than 10 years
SN sites: 10/10 have a Facebook profile and 6/10 since more than 3 years. They use also other social media tools and social networks , as shown in Figure 1.

Findings SN manager profile: quantitative data Fig. 1 – Social media uses

Findings
SN manager profile: quantitative data
Frequence of use of SNS: 8/10 access SNS many times during the day
Mobile access: 6/10 access SNS through their mobile phone (there is a correlation with the age)
Groups: almost all founded more than one group
History: 6/10 had founded virtual communities before SNS

Findings
SN groups profile: quantitative data
group foundation: 2007 (1), 2008 (2), 2009 (4), 2010 (2) e 2011 (1)
groups members: 5/10 have more than 1000 members, 2/10 have between 500 and 1000 members, only 2 groups have less than 300 members
members profile: mainly teachers, but also experts, professionals and “curious” members

Findings SN groups profile: quantitative data Fig. 2 – Number of SN groups’ members Fig. 3 – SN groups’ members profile

Findings SN groups profile: quantitative data Fig. 4 – SN groups’ aims and purposes

Findings
SN groups profile: quantitative data
Membership mechanisms:
6/10 completely free
3/10 invitation or cooptation
1/10 filtered by the founder
Invitation criteria: the main criteria is the sharing of interests
Rules: almost all groups don’t have any explicit rules
Removal of people or contents: this is not a common practice, but it happens in case of spamming, advertising or opportunistic behaviours

Findings SN groups profile: quantitative data Fig. 5 – Participation levels

Findings
SN groups and manager profiles: qualitative data
Reasons for founding the groups :
“ it’s the future of free and active citizenship”; “they increase sharing and participation”; “to provide professional support…”; “to share comments on a specific topic”; “personal curiosity”
Reasons for using SNS :
“ visibility”; “speedness”; “networking with a high number of people”; “to share my interests with others”; “they provide more opportunities for sharing ”; “uniqueness” (anobii); “they have specific functionalities”

Findings
Management :
All groups are mainly managed by the founder with some exeptions. In these cases, the founder is helped by colleagues in promoting discussions and checking posts/comments.
Actions done to cultivate the group’s life :
“ posting news”; “posting links”; “commenting news”; “posting comments”; “sharing links”; “sharing resources”; “checking contents”; “answering questions”; “moderating conflicts”; “promoting pertinent initiatives”; “favouring discussion”

Findings
Negative events :
most of the SN groups’ managers declared that there were no negative events with some exceptions … such as people leaving the group because of flaming or removing advertisement
Positive events :
“ sharing emotions”; “impact on real initiatives at local level”; “generating new projects”; “widening participation”; “widening sharing”; “creation of a network of blogs”; “storing of posts” (memory of the groups)

Findings SN groups and manager profiles: qualitative data We celebrated some significant moments for the group or for single participants: subscriber #1000, a dyslexic child passing to next class, a colleague's project winning a contest. We shared also the frustration for losing a job, the sadness of newly retired, and lots of laughter in telling jokes and gags. Sharing emotions…

Findings
I like… :
the easy way of expressing “approval” ( I like ); the possibility to write individual messages; alert messages; sharing
I dislike :
the SNS’ “short memory”: the low visibility of posts on the long run; the lack of internal search engines

Discussion and conclusions
Connecting : to be connected for sharing comments, link, resources and information is the most appreciated affordance of SNSs.
Contextualizing : interactions are immersed in contexts with intense interplay between real and virtual presence. From online networks to new projects, local initiatives and new connections.
Orchestrating : credibility seems to be linked only to professional credits, while excluding personal knowledge, but… there should be some intermediate levels of mediation…

Future developments
Elements that deserve further investigation and that will be the object of the 2nd study:
Practices of mobile social networking: Which affordances and constraints? Issues of geolocalization and privacy, «real-time» participation, etc.
The tacit mechanisms of participation: What kind of implicit rules? Spontaneous or «directed» self-management groups?
The need of a social memory: How to cultivate and storage it?
Types and mechanisms of personal credibility: Who credits whom? Which tools?

Thanks!  Maria Ranieri*, Stefania Manca**, Antonio Fini* *University of Florence , Florence ** Institute of Educational Technology, Genoa Italy

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Cultivating professional communities of teachers and practitioners through Social Networking Sites

by Maria Ranieri on Nov 21, 2011

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Cultivating professional communities of teachers and practitioners through Social Networking Sites — Presentation Transcript