What's HappenNing: intranet & private social networks

Staff Voice and ICT...
On the 15th of March, we had a Talent Management (mindset) workshop, whereby staff requested a virtual "private" space to:

• Exchange best practice
• Download & Print files related to their course
• Find teaching resources
• Host online conversations
• Check diaries
• Have contact directory
• Check whether resources were booked in or out and by whom

But they wanted it all under one roof!

The ICT Money Challenge we face as a small organization

There is no funding in large teaching contracts to improve provider capacity to increase ICT efficiency. So from day one we have had to adopt a pragmatic  "Duct Tape" approach to stitching together ICT in respond to user (teacher)  needs.

This has translated into the adoption of free and open platforms. If you can imagine the usual suspects, then we have used them: yahoo mail, gmail, google services, blogger.com, flickr, skype, dropbox,facebook, Diigo, etc., etc.

Until about two years ago we've had one part-time administrator and one senior member of staff servicing the needs of tutors who have grown from around 10 to over 20 plus. Can you imagine the exponential growth in electronic traffic? - still with no money for ICT improvements.

Adopting free tools has taught us a thing or two...about limitations

Knitting together all these free tools to serve a freelance and mobile group of teachers has given us the experience at the coal face of how none of what we have used can encompass the expressed needs of the tutors. We have looked at the usual suspects and here is a summary of what we have learned in the journey in the last week:

• Facebook Groups: Sound great, right?..Yup, you could use Facebook apps that are updated for 2013 that can elegantly handle the new working framework in which Facebook handles javascript and embed codes (to integrate services). All the <iframe> gee whiz apps promise a lot...but,  they have access to a lot of access to a plethora of what is being exchanged!...You have to check the small print.
• Google pages/groups: After asking "Papa google" or "Daddy Google" as you would say in English, I could not find anything regarding how to embed code to integrate other services.
• Ning.com Freemium said goodbye: A couple of years ago, this used to be a "build your own free social network" - but alas, there is no Freemium (with the embed code faciltiy)
• Spruz.com: A Ning competitor looked promising - even in the description, but as soon as you try to embed services via javascript & widgets, you get slammed with the notice that you need to upgrade!
• Google sites to the rescue?: The embed codes are proving to be a technical challenge. The "technical cooking" recipes didn't work for me. I had to throw in the towel after two days of trying. However, after a rest and further trawling, if what you are trying to embed has an RSS feed associated to it, it appears that this could be a way to pipe in the information into google sites. I have yet to try these "technical recipes . RSS integration (from other sites) into google sites is yet to be confirmed by me. Need to try it out.