The idea:
When I thought about how Lenora could approach the task of creating an online anti-bullying resource with her limited website design skills and dial-up Internet, I did not think a website was the way to go. The challenges Lenora would face in building a website are not a good use of her limited time. Taking both the time needed compared to Lenora’s priorities and commitments and her Internet access into consideration, I think Lenora should create a blog instead of a website. A blog would not require a significant amount of website design skills as many come with premade, intuitive templates. Additionally, a blog would not (necessarily) require outside hosting, and would come with many useful features for sharing her content and encouraging interaction. As Lenora may not be confident in her skill set, she could start with something simple, then, as her confidence grows, she could add additional features. A blog would also be a good platform for others to contribute with guest posts.
Solution for dial-up internet:
To mitigate potential difficulties with Lenora’s dial-up connection, I suggest that she use an offline editor to create her blog posts. There are many offline editors available for both Mac and PC, and Lenora could download the .exe at work and bring it home if the file size was too large to download at home. If she did not want to download a client, Microsoft Word 2007 and higher has a blog editing function. Many offline editors allow users to create posts and see it exactly as it would appear on the website, so Lenora could get the text and basic formatting done at home and perhaps upload smaller files. With drafts mapped out at home, Lenora would only have to add the larger files and images while at school, then she could make the post go live with limited extra time spent at school.
Building an audience:
To build her initial audience, Lenora could share a link to her blog in the Cradleboard Teaching Project Teacher’s Circle. She could also use Twitter, or other social media plug-ins to promote the blog and to provide additional avenues of interaction.
Curation as an additional resource:
When considering a blog as a solution for Lenora, I thought about how I usually find blogs I’m interested in–Pinterest. I don’t think Pinterest is ideal for Lenora’s situation, but it did remind me of Spiro’s (2014) point about curation when he suggests that education will move toward learning professionals curating content. I didn’t think Pinterest was what Spiro meant, so I did a quick search and found two similar websites that could be useful for Lenora: Mentormob or Scoop.It. I have not personally used these, but I believe they would enable Lenora to curate content from her blog as well as items already hosted online, lessening the need to upload using her dial-up connection or staying late at work. As these are meant to facilitate learning, they would complement the blog and perhaps be suited for an online Pro-D.
Drawbacks and considerations:
A drawback to both using a blog that Lenora is not hosting herself and using curation platforms is privacy and ownership of information considerations. Lenora wishes to create this resource for band teachers and may not want her content accessible to the public. Making the blog private could restrict access to her intended audience if Lenora doesn’t add them as permitted users and, her dial-up connection may prohibit her from quickly responding to requests for access. However, being open to the public also creates potential problems; moderating comments, for example, would be time-consuming and a burden on Lenora’s dial-up Internet connection. Lenora would encounter similar issues with the curation platforms and their privacy settings. Additionally, Lenora would also need to carefully examine the privacy policies of both the blog (if she’s not self-hosting) and the curation sites to ensure they meet the requirements of the privacy policy governing her school board and/or geographic jurisdiction to safeguard her information and that of users and contributors.
Spiro, K. (2014). 5 elearning trends leading to the end of the Learning Management Systems. Retrieved from http://elearningindustry.com/5-elearning-trends-leading-to-the-end-of-the-learning-management-system