Title: The design and development of an online tool to strategically support knowledge acquisition for improved educator practice

Authors: Matthew A. Easter; Ioan Gelu Ionas

Addresses: Department of Educational, School and Counseling Psychology, University of Missouri, 16 Hill Hall, Columbia, MO 65601, USA ' Walden University, Minneapolis, MN 55401, USA

Abstract: With recent push for teacher accountability in education systems, there has been a clear need to develop effective professional development tools to assist teachers in meeting these standards. Here, we discuss the design and development of a technological tool called EdHub, which seeks to create a strategic knowledge sharing community in order to effectively promote growth and improvement in teachers' pedagogical skills. EdHub helps users with identified practice needs connect with others of similar needs, access materials to support knowledge acquisition, get feedback from supervisors on self-reflection efforts, and ultimately contribute strategies to curated repositories of resources. This was done utilising a closed, nested social network with affordances for communication with experts, supervisors, and other learners seeking similar knowledge to improve practice. In this paper, we discuss the theoretical background, design principles, technologies utilised, developed tools, and considerations for similar design and development efforts.

Keywords: communities of practice; CoP; teacher accountability; social networking; strategic knowledge sharing; technology design; technology development; knowledge acquisition; professional development; pedagogical skills; virtual communities; online communities; web based communities.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIIE.2016.081548

International Journal of Innovation in Education, 2016 Vol.3 No.2/3, pp.122 - 135

Received: 02 May 2016
Accepted: 12 Oct 2016
Published online: 12 Jan 2017 *

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