Creating a space for increased community feeling among geographically distributed teachers

We present the initial stages of a project in which we focus on participatory design methods to build information and communication technology support that stimulate knowledge sharing in a group of geographically distributed teachers. Teachers in general spend most of their time in a classroom leaving few opportunities for social encounters and chats with their colleagues. The prototype we are developing focuses on informality and playfulness, that would increase the social communication and thereby the community feeling. In turn, this would ultimately increase learning among the setting members.