to possible H1N1 cases. The closing was initially announced as being for
two weeks, but after one day being closed, new CDC recommendations allowed
us to reopen. (All our students with the flu are doing well.)
For most of one day, we all thought we would be closed for two weeks, so
we started to quickly ramp up possible solutions for keeping courses
moving forward. You can read more about the day on this ISEnet post.
http://isenet.ning.com/forum/topics/closed-for-two-weeks-due-to
As luck would have it, we had created a school Ning a few days before the
closure. We viewed it as just an additional communication/collaboration
tool should we ever happen to be forced to close. The Ning was basically a
shell with only three members. I sent out an email to faculty about 8 pm
on the evening of the closure annoucement, letting them know about the
ning site, and suggesting that for some things -like discussions- the ning
might be a good optional resource. By 4 pm the following day the Ning site
had over 200 members, 30 course groups, and a very rapidly developing
sense of community. To put in slightly differently, we experienced with
our own little social network, the same explosive growth that happened
with Facebook and MySpace.
The rapidity with which the ning site developed gives us a lot of
confidence that we could maintain a strong sense of community during an
extended closure. The ning is just one of the tools we would use to
facilitate communication, but it is now very clear to us that it would be
an important one.
So here is one easy way to prep for a pandemic. Encourage your faculty to
become members of the Independent School Educators ning
(http://isenet.ning.com). This will provide a double benefit. Immediately
it will help them develop their own personal learning networks and it will
have them comfortable and familiar with Nings should your school ever need
to use one in an emergency. Oh yeah, and you might want to create your own
school Ning, and have it ready to go should you ever need it. You never
know. :-)
Fred
-------------------------
Fred Bartels
Head - Computer Department
Rye Country Day School
914-925-4610
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