Improving Internet strategies and maximizing the social media presence of LLP projects

This project was financed with the support of the European Commission. This publication is the sole responsibility of the author and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. http://www.web2llp.eu

Forget the numbers – what about the impact!

making more of social media in European collaborative projects related to lifelong learning

Sally Reynolds, ATiT, Belgium

• About the project • Usage of Social Media and

Internet in Lifelong Learning Projects

• Good practice from existing projects

• Project service offer• Issues and Recommendations

2 year KA2 Lifelong Learning Project - 2012-2013Partnership:•University Luxembourg•Web2Learn, Greece•P.A.U Education•Coventry University Enterprises, UK•Pixel, Italy•ATiT, Belgium

User Need analysis:•Initial research in 2010 - online questionnaire addressed to LLP project teams •Out of 289 LLP projects selected for funding in 2010 - focused on a random sample of 150.

Ju-Youn SONG University of Luxembourg & Katerina ZOUROU Web2Learn, Greece

CategorisationConole & Alevizou (2010)

• Social networking sites; (i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning)• Blogs• Microblogging tools; (i.e. Twitter)• Presentation repositories (i.e. Slideshare)• Video sharing tools; (i.e. YouTube, Vimeo)• Social bookmarking applications; (i.e. Diigo, del.ici.ous)• Web 2.0 picture repositories (i.e. Picasa, Flickr)• RSS feed (allowing users to receive messages on their

RSS aggregator, i.e. Google reader)

139 out of 150 projects

Website

47 projects out of 150Facebook 43

LinkedIn 8Ning 2

Social Networking Sites

23 projects with a Twitter account

http://www.scoop.it/t/iwbs-language-teaching

https://www.facebook.com/aplanetproject

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3960155&trk=vsrp_groups_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId

%3A16166931371210388490%2CVSRPtargetId%3A3960155%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary

https://twitter.com/languages_web2

http://www.rec-all.info/

Service ofer

Services:15 Video Showcases8 Video Tutorials3 handbookshelpdesk

http://www.web2llp.eu/home

Service ofer

Training:5 Day Face-to-face10 hour Pilot course (EN)10 hour Course (IT) •10 hour Course (FR) •10 hour Course (EN)

Face-to-face course

• Week-long residential training course delivered in Leuven 18 - 23 February 2013

• Included in the Grundtvig/Comenius Data base of courses

• Promoted widely via appropriate channels in 2012/2013 including national agencies and European channels like eLearningEuropa

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Improving web strategies and maximising the social media presence of LLP projects

Course Applicants

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…..of which 28 were directly involved in LLP projects.

Austria 3 Hungary 1 Portugal 4

Belgium 3 India 1 Romania 1

Cyprus 2 Ireland 1 Spain 5

Georgia 2 Italy 4 Sweden 1

Germany 4 Latvia 2 Turkey 2

Greece 3 Poland 1 UK 4

Course Participants

9 people received funding - 8 eventually took part from Italy, Austria, Spain, Germany and Latvia - 4 men and 4 women.

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Trainees and some of the trainers who took part

Course description• General inputs on the value of social media for LLP

projects aimed at raising awareness • Group work to develop a dissemination strategy and

action plan for a mock-up project using social media • Input from experienced practitioners to highlight

best practice• Focus sessions on specific tools and types of tool

including the “big 3” of social media• Opportunities to work on trainees’ own projects

and their use of social media • Secret Facebook group

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Course objectives and expectations

• Identification of the right SM tools that will yield the most impact for dissemination

• Understanding, creating and implementing a web strategy at the proposal stage

• Sharing the knowledge of SM training not just to parties interested in their projects but their peers also

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Evaluation approach

• Informal feedback and impressions gathered during the course

• Formal evaluation at end of course• Follow up evaluation 3 months later to assess

real impact

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Formal evaluation

80% satisfaction level for the course

Areas for improvements to the course, certain content and delivery. •More hands-on activity related to an actual project•Other suggested training courses – to make the course virtual•Good / Bad analysis of SM campaigns•To have pre-reading material on the various subjects•Advertise the course via the EACEA Infodays•To adopt the availability of the course as part of the application / proposal stage

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Evaluation 3 months later• I have developed web and social media strategies for two projects I am working with, I have shared

my new knowledge with my colleagues, I have started using several new tools for the projects I implement

• I ran a first hand-on training with the staff ......we focussed on Twitter and LinkedIn, discussed the pro and cons of the different ways to establish and manage accounts, put people in charge of different tasks and are now gathering experience ….

• For our next projects to be planned I could raise the attention to plan SM from the beginning - instead of just adding it at the end for dissemination only.

• I have used web and social media strategies, tools and materials learned in Web2LLP in the courses I teach, both graduate or postgraduate and in research projects, both on going and also in proposals

• Use of more media for promoting project includes renewal of FB page for company, creation of events and promotion of projects and activities and utilisation of tools for management of accounts (Hootsuite and Tweetdeck)

• The tools and services offered both during and after the course have been very helpful and have left a significant mark on our work

• Thank you guys for being available to answer all our SM related questions! I really appreciate having a team to help me out with my SM adventures.

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Online courses

• Pilot in English – 5 sessions of 2 hours delivered weekly starting 30 April

• Course in Italian - 5 sessions of 1 hours delivered weekly starting 4 June

• Course in French - 5 sessions of 1 hour delivered weekly starting 4 Sept

• Course in English - 5 sessions of 1 hour delivered weekly starting 6 Sept

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Contents• Setting up a web strategy and communication

action plan• Selecting and choosing social media tools• Managing and measuring social media

presence • Sharing online content (and dealing with

copyright issues)• Round-table session with experienced LLP

managers27

Structure and support- webinar

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Moderators Domain experts

Invited LLP managers

Group or one-to-one chatQuick

Feedback

Presentations, polls, screen sharing and mind maps

Structure web page

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Recording for watching afterwards

Slides that were shown available for download

Any preparation work beforehand and description of session

Bios and photos of session leaders

Course Participation April – June 2013

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Courses Participation Sept – Oct 2013

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Location – Participants April – June

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Location – Participants Sep – Oct

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Slideshare views

34

Views of recording

35

Evaluation

36

http://www.web2llp.eu/training/online

Issues and Recommendations

• Importance of a web strategy from the start – recognise that Social Media goes beyond ‘importing’ dissemination methods and messages into a new media, it’s a tool for dialogue with NEW methods and new messages.

Issues and Recommendations

• Importance of a web strategy• Project identity vs. topic or area of expertise

Issues and Recommendations

• Importance of a web strategy• Project identity vs topic or area of expertise• Responsibility and ownership with the

project team

Issues and Recommendations

• Importance of a web strategy• Project identity vs topic or area of expertise• Responsibility and ownership• Sustainability – own channels vs active

engagement in existing channels

Issues and Recommendations

• Importance of a web strategy• Project identity vs topic or area of expertise• Responsibility and ownership• Sustainability – own channels vs active

engagement in existing channels• Numbers and expectations – by partners, by

the EC

Issues and Recommendations

• Importance of a web strategy• Project identity vs topic or area of expertise• Responsibility and ownership• Sustainability – own channels vs active

engagement in existing channels• Numbers and expectations – by partners, by

the EC• Dealing with limited resources

For more information

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http://www.web2llp.eu

http://www.slideshare.net/Web2LLP

sally.reynolds@atit.be

Thank you!