Hi Nichole, 

I support getting back to a monthly newsletter is great - a lot is happening worldwide and a quarterly newspaper means is dense and too restricting.

I do *not* support the idea of limiting the articles to only 4, nor the idea of working only around one selected theme. 
We are a volunteer-based movement, not a professional education journal. Volunteers should be able to share their news from around the world whenever *they* want to and as things happen. They should not be limited by number of submissions or a theme. In other words, we should make it easier on them, not harder. 

That said, I believe your idea of thematic news could be incorporated in a less restrictive way. One way of going about it is having a featured spot in the newspaper, dedicated to thematic headlines or anything else the community / editors think should be featured there. 

But, that's just me. :) I would love to hear what other members of this group think about it. 

Cheers, 
Shani.



On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 6:07 AM, Nichole Saad <nsaad@wikimedia.org> wrote:
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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