The American Heritage Dictionary defines collaboration as "To work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort." How then, you ask, does the website promote collaboration?

To better understand this question, it's important to realize how the web has changed. Some people call our current web a ‘second version of the web,' hence Web2.0. In this second generation web, everyone participates. Everyone can publish content on the web, like pictures, MySpaces, wikis, blogs, etc

Our website allows us to do just this. All the content is created by you, not just me, and each section is owned by a distinct group of authors and publishers - from teachers, to parents, to students, and board members.

At this point in the development of the website, the changes are mostly content-related. New content is added, menus are added-to and pruned. 75% of all Teacher profiles are completed. The home page flash file has been updated. Access to the school calendar has been improved.

The featured Top Hits in this update are as follows:

• Teacher Menu = 3,318 hits
• Student Menu = 2,752 hits
• Parent Menu = 1,888 hits
• Student Blogs = 561 visits
• Elementary Espacio = 480 visits
• Discussion Forum = 437 visits
• Library = 432 hits

Jason Hershberger has written over a dozen articles – from his course-specific pages to those related to the After School Activity Program and newly added content related to the Learning Center .

David Cevoli has updated the Library page which now has nearly 600 visits in two months! He has also developed a Mission Statement for the Library.

I would also like to highlight the Student Blogs . There are 65 student blogs written, and nearly 50 of them have been published by Damien Pitter, Genevieve Hiltebrand, Bradley Bergey and Jason Hershberger. These four publishers have read each blog, edited them for format and content, and published the student work to the web. Also noteworthy is that the Student Blog page is among the 20 top destinations on this website.

Here are some of key features and updates I'd like to share with you this week:

• "Student Blogs " from the Cultural Trips
• A new space especially for teacher collaboration, "Collaboration Corner "
• A redesigned space for the Elementary School, "Elementary Espacio "
• A new "Curriculum " section
• Video (i.e. YouTube) and sound (podcasts) supported
• 306 registered members
• More help files created
• We had 427 unique visitors on October 9th - the most since the site was launched!
• 3214 total unique visitors, 6206 total thus far
• Improved contextual-based user menus
• A published Service Level Agreement to share my service commitment with you

With the launch of our collaborative website this September, your participation has been important to its success. We have over 150 parents, teachers and staff registered on our site. In just a few weeks we have had nearly 3000 visits from approximately 1700 unique visitors! Of the 3000 visits, 40% of those are from returning visitors. Our visitors are spending nearly five minutes per visit on our site. English, Spanish and Japanese are the three most common language-settings our visitors' computers are set to. The most common search terms used to find our website are "Benjamin Franklin international school," "bfis," "Benjamin Franklin Barcelona, "international school Barcelona, and "Benjamin Franklin school Barcelona."

The Community Directory is one of the most popular pages, which means it is important we have a complete and up-to-date directory. Thus, each profile page should have an image associated with it. To make this easier for you, a school picture is available on Webteach / Website Staff Photos. Please take a moment to update your profile image and any other information on your profile you would like to embellish - such as About Me or Additional Information if you have not done so already.

The ‘Elementary Classrooms' link is one of the top 20 hits on the website. Since this is another entrance to the teachers' class pages, after the Community Directory, it is important that each teacher has his/her class page up-to-date with current and relevant information for your students and parents, as appropriate. Pat Moore's web page is among the top 30 most visited pages on the whole website! Carolina Baez and Bradley Bergey's class pages are within the top 60 most visited pages on the site. Middle and High School teachers, since there is no single entry point for your class pages, tracking the success of your page is based on individual pages, like Bradley's. Genevieve Hiltebrand and Keelin Swalve have pages that are other examples of how the website can be a regular part of your communication with parents and students.

As the webmaster, of course I see the benefit in adding the website to our growing list of available communication tools, but I am not alone; a number of parents and students have expressed their appreciation for the information some teachers make available to their students and parents. To give all our community members the opportunity to be more involved in what is happening in the classroom, let the website help you in that endeavor. As a school, we would like to commit to our parents and students that by the end of the month of October, all our profile pages and class pages will be edited and up-to-date. Hopefully, by that point more of you will be using the site as a regular part of your classroom communication.

Help is available in a number of forms - personal help will be continued to be made available at various times in the month, online help files many with videos are always available on the website, and the discussion forum is where you will post your specific questions. I will answer questions posted in the forum within a day, although anyone else with the answer might be able to give help even sooner. The advantage of using the forum is that we all can benefit from the questions one person asks. So please ask questions in the appropriate forum! I will answer forum questions before those asked by email.