OfflineFirst let me convey you my appreciation of this initiative. It would be great to have an international venue for talking about education with parents, students and teachers who share the "IB experience" around the world.
I come here as a father of a kid in a PYP program in Brazil. Also, as an enthusiatic believer and reaseacher of the power of digital dialogue.
In this last capacity, I would point you that forum topics should never be opened empty just because the community developers feel that a certain sujects should be discussed. When this is done your interactive space looks like an empty cemetery, an empty place with lots of rooms to where nobody cared to come.
Topics should always be opened with an initial post. Good opening posts establish a clear theme, state context and pose questions.
I would also add in fear of extending myself and diverging from a clear theme, context and purpose, I found the front page here quite confusing. To much stuff going on.
Could we talk about what is really valuable, not for an ideal community, but for the people who have actually come over? What do you want out of a place like this? You who is leading the project (nice meeting you, who ever you are, congratulations) and you who came over for whatever reason, just like me.
Myself, I would like to discuss particular experiences such as, for instance: my son is not a native speaker of English, me neither, but he attends an English "speaking" school, how hard should I push him on the language? Can I foster the pleasure of reading without resorting to Portuguese? How should I balance both languages?
I will not develop this question as I do not wish this topic diverging to it, might open another one for it later.
My point here is to discuss the forum itself. What do you want? Can we establish common objectives?
Cheers!
Hermano Cintra
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This website has been set up by IB specifically for the IB community theme.
It is intended to encourage members of the IB community (students, teachers, IB staff, parents and all those associated directly with the IB in other ways) to engage with the community theme: sharing our humanity. By doing so, we become better informed about the global issues of the theme and share our experiences of engaging with them. The aim, also, is to strengthen the IB community as we share in this common enterprise, focused on humanity in general.
Some resources, links, suggestions and reports have been posted to the site initially, to provide inspiration and ideas for schools, and for members of the IB community in general. IB is not endorsing any of the third party links – see Terms and conditions.
There are opportunities for all members of the community to contribute to the site, in various ways.
In relation to the forums, the topics listed are simply intended to reinforce that this site is concerned with the IB community theme and its associated global issues. It is not intended to be a forum for more general discussion of IB-related matters. We took the view that there was enough stimulation of discussion with the initial postings, and with the guiding questions in the About this site page and that we should therefore not make initial postings to the forums.
Community theme team
Thanks for the answer.
In the best spirit of contribution, I would say both my comment and others around reinforce my point on the home page. To much going on, your basic intention went amiss.
I came here following an email from the head master of the school where my son studies. Her email wasn't long. Just presented your initiative as an interesting resource to be explored. I might well just be that I am missing background.
I will beg to insist on my point above. Often, a virtual community will thrive for reasons quite different from the ones initially intended.
I do understand that you had to set up an initial structure. Yet, would reiterate my advice of having initial posts. Would also say it is best to start with a small number of opened areas. As I said, empty forums are uninviting.
There was a lot of content set as stimuli, which might be a bit overwhelming. I headed to the forum instead of commenting on specif blog items because forums are generally more representative of the conversation going on.
I don't know how old this initiative is, but would nevertheless remark that you have opened 16 different forum areas and only five of then have messages. None of which seem to abide to your intentions. Haven't seen any blog post being commented as well.
Look, I am writing here with the best of intentions. Reading your answer it looked like you were taken aback by what I said. Sorry, if it sounded wrong to you. Your answer also sounded a bit quarrelsome to me, as if you were defending something. No need. I hope you get to your objective.
Regards.
Hermano Cintra
Sorry to bump on myself, but I think I should clarify something.
I went back to the home page and tried to look at the site afresh.
It is not the main home which is overwhelming, I really got this feeling from the sub-home "For everyone".
More important, I think I can convey you the piece of background missing to me, which led to imagine the forum could serve a quite different purpose.
Your initial text takes for granted that I would know what a Community Theme as all about, not the particular one "Sharing our Humanity", but the concept behind the initiave. Now that I read the "About this site" and "Getting started" items (yes, I could have done
it before, sorry), I can see what I should have known and didn't. At least, I looks like I was not alone in this misunderstanding.
Feel free to delete this topic if you wish. Yet, I do stand by what I said. Empty forums give a bad vibe and opening posts are essential.
Regards.
Hermano Cintra
Thanks for your helpful comments and feedback Hermano.
Some of us on the community theme project team met this morning and discussed your points. We shall be looking to make changes to the site so that we can introduce people to the idea of the community theme more effectively, and make the purposes of the site clearer to people. But we decided that we (ie IB) are not going to make initial postings to the forums at this stage, as you suggest. We think we should let the IB community determine whether or not these are used.
Thanks again for your comments. We hope to have a better site by taking them on board.
Boyd Roberts
for the IB community theme project team.
Glad to be of help
Cheers!
Hermano