One of the main features of Connected.info is the ability to create connections between yourself and other users. These connections allow you to share information through an unlimited number of personal groups by inviting your friends to join a group. Each and every group in Connected.info has its own calendar, document sharing, blog and wiki, and discussion forums. There is also photo sharing with built-in integration to Flickr(tm). The first step in all of this is to invite another user to become your friend in Connected.info.
The process of becoming friends has many restrictions placed on it by existing laws such as FERPA and COPPA. These laws require that for any student, parental approval must be obtained before a student can interact with anyone else in a system such as Connected.info except for their teacher(s). Thus, only students whose parents have both registered for Connected.info AND approved their child’s use of the system can be invite to be a friend.
One of the bootstrap issues this creates in Connected.info is that frequently students are provided registration tokens and register to use Connected before their parents are given their registration tokens by the school district. Many times, the school district will wait until “Back to School” night to provide the registration tokens. A better system is to provide the registration tokens during “schedule pickup” day or at the time of enrollment.
Let’s move on to the process of making a friend request. Step 1 is to navigate to the Friends area in the application by selecting the Connections tab and then selecting Friends in the left side navigation frame. At this point, typing all or part of the friend’s name into the search box and pressing Return, will perform a search. The result will be a list like the one below:
Notice that there is a Request as Friend link in blue to the right of each name found. Selecting the link will instruct Connected.info to deliver a friend request to the selected user. Once the user has accepted the request, they will show up in your list of friends. You will also receive a message in your Message inbox when they have accepted the request.
Once you are friends, the next step may be to create an on-line group for you and your friends to interact. This could be based on a school project, club, sports team, or just around a topic of interest such as Music. Suppose you were interested in Techno music and wanted a place to share news and information about your interest with your friends.
Creating a group in Connected.info is very easy. Again, select the Connections tab in the application. You will be in the groups are by default. Select the Create Group button and you will see a popup similar to the one below:
Fill out the information on the group you wish to create and decide whether you want this to be an invitation only group or not. Then, select Create Group and you have created the group.
The next step is to invite your friend to be members. To do that, select the group from the list of group you are a member / owner of and you will navigate to the group’s page as in the image below:
Then, select the Invite button and you will navigate to a page similar to the one below:
You can type into the box as many friends as you want. As you type, the system will show you any friends whose names match the part of the name you have typed. Once you have completed your list, select the Invite button and the system will notify all of the people you have invited. As they accept the invitation, they will show up as members on the group page.
We hope this helps give you some ideas of how to interact with your on-line friends. As always, we welcome your notes and feedback.
