Link to site: https://www.yammer.com/
What is it
Do you ask most teachers they would say they get too much in the way of email actually not just teachers anyone would say that email actually takes up more time than anything else in their working day. but with colleges being spread over a further Geographic distance the need to communicate is still key.
And that's where tools like Yammer are useful, they provide a social media style space where you are able to share information, resources, have a discussion with colleagues in a less formal setting.
How to use
Just like the other Office 365 applications you access it by clicking on the nine boxes in the top right corner if enabled by your employer, once logged in you can create a message or a group.
Creating a group is really straightforward, click on the create group link, a new window will open choose between either an Internal group which will allow people to communicate and collaborate with people inside your company or an External group so that you communicate and collaborate with people who work at other companies. Next add a group name and then invite the people that you wish to join, by adding their email addresses. Finally you can choose if the group is visible to anyone in your network or whether it's a private and only visible group members only.
Creating a post is also very straight forward and you don’t have to be in a group to post, Simply click on create a message choose from Update, Poll or praise enter the text or a link that you want to include in your message and then choose who you want to send it to. That could be the whole company or named individuals.
You can also add an animated gif, a file from SharePoint , a file that you've uploaded to Yammer or you can upload a specific file and add it to the post, before clicking post.
When to use it
I can see Yammer being great way for teachers to share best practice information and resources amongst colleagues who work across different sites. It would also enable best practice conversations to continue beyond the staffroom or staff meetings and it provides a nice alternative to sending even more emails.
Here is my quick video guide on using it
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