• Read and discussed Online Learning Communities by Amy Jo Kim and other related articles.
• The team interviewed the GMU TTAC Director, Shannon Hardy.
• The team divided into subgroups to conduct the needs analysis.
• Subgroups reported on the tentative external mission and tag lines.
• Team members analyzed online communities and reported their findings to the team.
• The team is formulated a list of technical needs for the programer.
• Group members suggested the idea of having a mid-semester presentaion educating TTAC on on-line learning communities.
  
  

We started this week by gathering ideas from the readings which gave us more insights about designing an online community. The readings provided resources such as additional websites and software. On January 29th, the team interviewed Shannon Hardy regarding her role, responsibilities and the inter-workings associated with TTAC and the impact of that relationship on TTAC online. For further information gathering, Shannon gave us leads to meet with teachers and administrators from Prince William County and the JMU TTAC director. In response to Shannon's suggestions, the team divided into three subgroups to interview teachers, administrators and TTAC directors.

A tentative external mission was formulated for the group's comments and suggestions. Some members shared their tag lines for comments. The group will continue to work on finalizing the mission statement, tag lines and formulating a back story for the site. On January 30th, three team members presented their analysis of the researched online communities, other team members will present their analysis next week. The analyzed communities were: blackplanet.com, ivillage.com, vmed.com. A list of technical ideas, needs, and suggestions is being passed around to group members via email to be given to the programer on Tuesday, February 6.

Next Steps:

-Subgroups will work on refining the questionnaire for the teachers, administrators and directors.

-Two of the subgroups will meet with the teachers and administrators on February 8 in Prince William County where a TTAC workshop is being held.

-The other subgroup will meet with JMU's TTAC director on February 7 in Harrisonburg, Va.

-Team members will review and analyze TTAC newsletters on the TTAC websites.