Model of digital mediation to support communication between teachers unions and the education community

Abstract

In the context of Portuguese teachers unions, the adoption of information and communication technologies is nowadays a reality. However, in our opinion, their internet portals still lack interaction, participation, and collaboration, as they are mostly concentrated on unidirectional information dissemination between union representatives and other education stakeholders. This paper aims at presenting a proposal of digital mediation based on a conceptual model and the corresponding proof of concept - a Web application - to support communication between teachers unions and other stakeholders. We strongly believe that this proposal can enrich web portals of teachers unions with innovative features and, as a result, contribute to strengthen the relationship between unions and the education community and to foster participation among all stakeholders in the education process. This paper also addresses an initiative carried out by the teachers union of the Centre region of Portugal, where the proposed platform was used to create sporadic participation events supporting bidirectional asynchronous communication. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.