Sustaining social networks in education

This paper draws on experience in innovation projects at Education.au in the past two years considering how social networking might enhance professional learning for educators. The resulting service (me.edu.au) aims to put the individual rather than the institution at the centre of learning, and to provide individual educators with support as they step into Web 2.0. While professional learning and collaborative knowledge construction are desirable goals of professional social networking, this case study outlines challenges faced through the Innovate – Collaborate – Sustain phases of such projects. It provides an evaluation of Education.au’s online professional networking project using the 5-stage process of computer mediated communication as a model (Salmon, 2003).