Social networking technology for virtual student engagement and school activities

Technology Evaluation of Social Networking Platforms

In evaluating whether or not the online high school that has the advanced technologies for enabling greater student collaboration, support for student outcomes, and enabling greater levels of communication across our student and instructor populations, the following analysis has been completed. The need for social networking solution that can align thoroughly and quickly with the culture of a given organization is key to its adoption and ability to deliver value on a consistent basis (Bennett, 2008). While the high school has exceptional technology, it will be prudent to consider hwo effectively their technologies can be used to supplant and strengthen our learning objectives. This alignment of technology to our strategic plans needs to be the watermark by which it is judged.

Analysis of Factors For Implementing Social Networking

The most critical success factor in implementing an innovative technology internally is the ability to create a high level of user adoption and significantly change processes and performance of an organization for the before. The greatest measure of any technology in a firm is its ability to create transformation change in processes, procedures and programs, assuring the organization is improved as a result of the investment (Kaye, Dyason, 1999).

In the case of evaluating the small online high school's social networking platform the long-term costs of maintenance, the critical need for gaining access to source code and ideally getting the programmers on staff, and also getting the system aligned to our specific learning objectives all must be considered. The risks are that the online high school system will not completely meet our needs and not be able to scale to our specific requirements as effectively as possible. There is also the downside risk of it not being customizable enough for our specific needs and how our students are accustomed to working. One of the most powerful aspects of traditional social networking applications is their ability to create a strong sense of autonomy, mastery and purpose by giving users control over how they are used (Bernoff, Li, 2008). This is a very critical success factor in deciding if and how to implement external technologies internally.

Additional factors to consider when implementing an externally acquired technology include the extent of system and intrerprocess integration, which has provide at times to be probability when bringing social networking applications into the enterprise (Mithas, Costello, Tafti, 2011). These integration factors at the process level are critical for long-term adoption of social networking applications to progress over the long-term.