Development+of+Enhanced+Solebury+School+Faculty+Communication+and+Professional+Learning+Community


 * Problem**: Time and space limitations have reduced communication between faculty members. This has created an environment where many faculty members feel out of the loop on school issues and it also has limited the amount of sharing between colleagues. In addition, the boarding aspect of our school requires a great deal of coordination between faculty members in terms of keeping track of dorm infractions, student issues, study hall assignment, staff comments (regarding duty) and planning of weekend events. 5 years ago this was accomplished using a large 3-ring binder. A change was made to a less cumbersome automated "E-OD" book which is essentially an Excel sheet that has been tweaked for dorm use. The use of email to disseminate information has been helpful, but given the availability of new web tools, communication and planning could be improved. This would allow faculty members to use their time more efficiently and effectively.


 * Solution**: Development of a Faculty Ning site for improved communication between faculty members and a Faculty wiki site to replace the limiting and now antiquated "E-OD" book.


 * Project Outline:**
 * Define the needs of the Faculty
 * This is very subjective, but it has been obvious for some time that our school schedule does not allow for effective sharing of ideas or discussion of important school issues. Although there is no desire to entirely replace face-to-face faculty meetings or colleague interaction, it seems that there are web 2.0 tools that are available to enhance faculty communication. The basics needs of the faculty seem to be:
 * time for extended conversations on school issues (one issue that will certainly be excluded is student progress or concerns)
 * time for committees to meet to discuss ideas and develop plans
 * a place to record faculty discussions for those who miss meetings due to other school obligations, illness, etc.
 * A centralized place to record the OD comments for the dorm
 * A centralized place to coordinate weekend duty and to share the schedule with students
 * A centralized place for school information (especially schedules that change). ie. assembly schedules, exam schedules, athletics (including dismissal times), special schedules, faculty meeting agendas etc.
 * A place to share ideas (on just about any topic)


 * Explore the various tools (web 2.0 or other) available to meet those needs.
 * **Google Education Apps**
 * A pretty thorough set of applications that includes email, shared documents, wiki-type pages and much more. Although I see this as a good long-term solution to explore, it is much too complicated for me to tackle as a short-term project.


 * **Ning**
 * Has discussion (forum) space, ability to have private (committee discussions), calendar, blogging (for faculty minutes, Reports from the Headmaster) and is pretty flexible with features. Also fairly easy to use and learn.


 * **Wiki (Wetpaint, Wikispaces)**
 * The flexibility of a wiki seems ideal for designing a new OD book. Some structured pages (templates) could be made. This could be used for changing schedules, agendas, and coordinating weekend activities and campus coverage.
 * Wikispaces has a free upgrade for educators, so this may be the better option.
 * Easy to learn and use.


 * **Blogs (Wordpress)**
 * Although very useful in itself, the one dimensional nature of a blog site seems to be too limiting to meet the needs of the faculty.


 * **Moodle**
 * Education based and fairly highly regarded among a number of educators. Like Google Apps, this may weel be a great long term solution, but I have had difficulty getting a good feel for Moodle.


 * Design a basic site (or sites) that can be presented to the faculty.
 * Upon
 * Introduce the faculty to the sites and allow them to explore on their own.
 * Design and conduct some "test" situations that get some of the faculty using the sites and get some feedback from those who use it.
 * Provide some practical instruction on the use of the sites.