People rarely leave this community. It has maintained a steady growth pattern from the opening five members to the current 300+ members. There is ebb and flow in terms of their level of activity and working party involvement but there was clear evidence, from the stories told at the tenth birthday party of the community, that members deeply value their ongoing association.
The MirandaNet Fellowship, by virtue of its structure and norms, develops strong ties and interdependency between the members, clients and partners. This is a small selective and clearly bounded community.. The two-tiered framework of Scholars and Fellows creates mentoring and leadership relationships amongst peers. The research project partnerships, between people in different educational contexts, create strong bonds between members as they come to rely on and relate to each other when working together. Members build individual and group knowledge and capacity through their relationship with each other.
There are both public and closed forums on the Internet site to support members’ thinking and working together. Through their membership in MirandaNet members have the opportunity to explore new practices with cutting edge ICTs in a consultative organization, where professionals talk, listen and work together. Whether in an industry, academic or advisory capacity, MirandaNet Fellows all work to provide services for each other and ‘reify’ (Wenger, 2002) their practices in artifacts shared over the public site with the larger external educational community.
Participants in MirandaNet projects and research activities are able to publish work in a professional arena and to build up a status amongst their peers. At any one time there may be between five and twelve independent projects supported by the community. Project bidding was a major part of the director’s role until a person was hired to concentrate on winning bids. Unless specialist knowledge is required, most project teams are formed by sending out information to the community and asking who wants to be involved. The community is selective in the types of projects in which it engages. Companies do vie for MirandaNet to work with them but the director clearly stated that some products and/or company cultures were not considered good enough for MirandaNet to work with. Through involvement in MirandaNet, teachers don’t have to leave the classroom to reflect on their practice and to gain support for innovation. Members are afforded the opportunities to work as a leader within their own school and across project related schools.
There is a constant flow of messages, relating to project updates and new topics for discussion, between members over the community e-mail list and private discussions of the Miranda Link. This flow is punctuated and focused by the monthly e-mail newsletter. The newsletter draws member attention to reports and updates from current activities, educational policy updates and changes, funding opportunities and engagement opportunities. This community keeps members up-to-date with new government initiatives and priorities in relation to ICTs in education and discussion in the community has been used to formulate responses to media coverage, government press releases and ministerial requests.
The rhythm and connection of the community is further supported by face-to-face workshop and events held throughout the year. The workshops help members to stay abreast of the cutting edge technologies and pedagogical practices in school and curriculum areas. Face-to-face events in MirandaNet also allow members to socialize. The organizers have deliberately made face-to-face activities very social and entertaining and to treat the teacher members well when they come together. This is important to both teacher professional esteem and the development of ties within the community. Indeed the community director reported that MirandaNet gatherings were very highly regarded for being fun, motivational and opportunities for celebration. In Christina’s own words, “I deliberately make that a part of raising teachers’ self esteem. We do have a very serious entertainment side to the whole thing.”
