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
<https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Education/Newsletter/Newsroom>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(a)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(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:
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
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation/Newsletter/2016/3/10>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(a)wikimedia.org.
I'm looking forward to working closely with you all!
best regards,
Nichole
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