Would online communication tools enhance the effectiveness of your Professional Learning Community?  Are you working on a project that would benefit from online discussions and access to group documents and presentations?  Both of these questions can be answered by the use of a free Community Room within Michigan LearnPort.

Community Rooms are collaborative areas for common interest groups, PLCs, and school committees.  A number of powerful collaboration tools can found in Community Rooms.  Users can share documents and other resources, communicate via a Discussion Forum and chat room, and schedule group events on a shared calendar.  Community Rooms also include e-mail management and e-mail notification features.

Currently there are over 200 Community Rooms operating in Michigan LearnPort.  Community Rooms can be created so that they are: 1) Public, open to any Michigan LearnPort user; 2) Moderated, open to all users but only specified users may post content; or 3) Private, where only invited users may participate.  Individual users can be designated: 1) Members, who have ‘read-only’ access; 2) Contributors, who can add content or have “read-write” access; and 3) Owners, who administer the Community Rooms.

Some very active Community Rooms (CR) within Michigan LearnPort are for the School Improvement Facilitators Network comprised of ISD and local district staff who have responsibility for assisting schools with developing and implementing their school improvement plans.  One CR is for all of the facilitators and the other CR is for the Planning Committee.  Minutes, handouts from workshops or meetings, forms, and the yearly registration brochure are posted In the Content folder.  Joyce Miller, Community Room Coordinator states, “This allows for a ‘go to’ location where key information is stored.  Time consuming searches for e-mail messages are eliminated or asking, ‘Did I save that file and if yes, what did I name it?’”  All Community Room participants are automatically notified when new information is posted.

David Myers, Executive Director of Michigan LearnPort, sees Community Rooms as assisting local districts support and build on their professional development efforts.  “The collaborative features of Community Rooms are ideal for helping reinforce the PD that teachers undertake,” Myers states.  To assist users in creating and using Community Rooms, there is an excellent multimedia Tutorial.  This resource explains step-by-step how to create a Community Room and use the various features.

Michigan LearnPort is a free statewide professional development portal developed through a partnership between Michigan Virtual University® (MVU®) and the Michigan Department of Education (MDE).  All members of Michigan’s K-12 community are welcome and encouraged to join.  Michigan LearnPort is funded through ESEA Title II part (A).