Thank you for the welcome, Romaine! I'm very happy to be here. 

Thank you also for expressing the newsletters that engage you the most. That is very helpful information. 

I agree with what you said about producing a newsletter that helps to engage and move forward our education community. That is exactly what we want! 

Education is a highly nuanced and dynamic field, especially when you consider how diverse education systems are globally--as is Wikipedia in education. Not everyone will be an expert in every aspect of the education landscape, but sharing ideas and information relevant to certain topics could be very helpful to those less experienced or new to running programs, or those who want to start a program in an area in which they don't have experience. Having more conversations about the possibilities could be very valuable to the Wikipedia Education Community, the Wikipedia Movement, and even help push forward "Education for All." 

I have definitely heard the view that we should not limit what is included in a monthly newsletter, and that the community highly values the sharing of their experiences. It is great that so many are expressing what they would like the newsletter to be. 

We do want to get this going, so let's at least use January to discuss. I have moved the conversation on wiki here and have summarized the suggestions made in this thread. 

best wishes,

Nichole

On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 8:16 AM, Romaine Wiki <romaine.wiki@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Nichole,

Welcome to the education community!

If I would look at which newsletters in the Wikimedia movement are the most successful I would consider as top 3: Signpost, Wikidata newsletter and the This Month in GLAM (of course I have a bit of a conflict of interest with the last one). I value the learning quarterly, but I would not consider the set-up as that successful and inviting as the newsletters I consider to be in the top 3. So I would not take that newsletter as example.

I indeed think a newsletter helps to move forward our education community. In the newsletter we share our experiences, find inspiration and best practises. The newsletter is already about a theme: education. I do not think it is a good idea to choose to have themes each month. Then I think it does not give room to the experiences, but focuses on something else. It is of course possible to invite people to write about a certain topic, because you know that person has experience in it and it is good to stimulate a more diverse range of topics to be described, but making the newsletter thematic I do not think it is a good idea.

To me the education newsletter does not work that handy, but maybe I have a bias because of the This Month in GLAM newsletter I publish.
I do have years of experience in publishing multiple newsletters, and I am willing to help with the publishing, but I do not want to help when the whole newsletter becomes thematic.

Greetings,
Romaine

 

2016-12-16 5:07 GMT+01:00 Nichole Saad <nsaad@wikimedia.org>:
Dear WEP community, 

I know we've been introduced before, but let me reintroduce myself and some exciting new things I'll be working with you on. I'm Nichole, the new addition to the education team, and I'll be working on communications and as the regional focal point for Asia. 

I've been working on a plan to improve communication about the education program, including thematic elements, and along with Tighe and Vahid have concluded that the best place to start is with the newsletter. I know some of you were volunteering to produce the newsletter before, and I would love to hear from you if you have worked on this or are interested in starting. 

We've already got some great submissions in the Newsroom. Thanks to everyone who submitted their stories--The December Newsletter will go out by the end of the month :) 

Now for news about news! 

While we've currently been producing quarterly newsletters, I'm proposing to go back to monthly newsletters but smaller in scale with only 4 features per newsletter (the learning quarterly offers a good example). Each issue would be thematic, with a preceding community conversation around the theme taking place on Twitter, Facebook, the mailing list, and on the Wiki and synthesized as one of the features for the newsletter. The other features will be submissions from the community on project highlights or op-eds relevant to the theme. 

I would really like to get this off the ground for January, and that will require your cooperation! How can you get involved?

1. Submit your ideas for newsletter themes. Submissions needed by 12/24 on the Newsroom page, under the heading "Theme Ideas" 

To get the ball rolling here are a few general ideas:

  • Teacher Training/Professional Development
  • K-12
  • Higher Education 
  • Politics in Wikipedia Education Projects
  • Regional themes
  • Themes on specific Wiki projects
2. Once the theme is announced participate in the conversation! 

3. Volunteer to help produce the newsletter. We're going to need a team to help with: 
  • content curating 
  • revising the newsletter pages on the wiki 
  • formatting and publishing the monthly newsletters
  • distribution/promotion on various channels

Any questions can be directed to me nsaad@wikimedia.org. 

I'm looking forward to working closely with you all! 



best regards,

Nichole 

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_______________________________________________
Education mailing list
Education@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education