I’ve been spending a lot of time lately on “social media strategies” — particularly for AAUW. But in taking down a flyer from the bulletin board, I realized a large part of my interest in social media is as a “collaborative learning” tool — same idea, of course, just a different emphasis.

The piece I had on display was from iCohere and had these tips:

• Create a concise purpose statement
• Define members’ roles
• Establish expectations and timelines for participation
• Set expectations around renewed content
• Ensure privacy
• “Seed” the site
• Facilitate through role modeling
• Launch the community after an in-person meeting
• Conduct special online events
• Directly enlist members’ participation
• “Push” content to less active members
• Recognize exemplary members

So how many of those strategies do I follow? Well, now that I’ve typed them out myself, perhaps things like AAUW NC on Facebook and the BBVX Wiki (bbvx – one step beyond, get it?) will get incremental improvements.

For more of this wisdom, see, for example, www.icohere.com/CollaborativeLearning.htm and other articles on that site.