Hi Ray, 2009/11/8 Ray Sharma <[email protected]>
> > Agree that anything you do should have an easy opt in opt out option > > Don't forget RSS either - most blogs generate RSS (a list of recent > submissions) anyway and this can form the basis of a newsletter too. Google > homepage, many email readers today all support RSS subscription. > Agree -- we already run the Mediawiki RSS extensions where we can push and or pull feeds in WikiEducator. > > The real difference between the blog and newsletter in terms of content is > that usually a blog is collaborative, self building, and up to date whereas > a Newsletter is usually composed by somebody and thus requires greater > effort (someone collates all the info and sends it out) and has some time > lag . However, Newsletter's can be targeted better, as marketing tool and > direct to people but that in-its-self is a double edge sword, as you have > to > maintain your audience. > Good points -- The Newsletter / ezine will require greater effort. I'm keen to find a sponsor to help cover the editorial and the production side of things. As we practice open philanthropy copy of the newsletter / ezine will be developed openly in the wiki. > > I suspect for the first couple of communications you want a targeted > newsletter. As you catch up with the information you want to deliver then > moving to a more automated communication, RSS and possibly email > subscription would be the way. I would say go straight to the blog and > automated option. > > For offline people, this changes. The advantage of an up to the minute > automated information service such a blog will never be met. For these > people an offline version of a newsletter is required. However, even an > offline newsletter can be generated from online content though some > automated process - the creation of the content may not be the issue - but > how they receive it could (which impacts frequency). As well as traditional > post, you can also deliver a newsletter as an Acrobat file which can be > downloaded and printed (in 100000's if neeed) in the destination country, > they could even do this from a web page. So the web can still be used to > facilitate offline users. > All good advice -- thanks Ray :-) > > Ray > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] > On Behalf Of Steve Foerster > Sent: 07 November 2009 15:45 > To: WikiEducator > Subject: [WikiEducator] Re: WE blog or newsletter? > > > Wayne wrote: > > << Agree we need to be very careful with mass-email which can arguably > and justifiably be labelled as WE spam. I would suggest implementing > an option for new users to subscribe to a news / letter magazine. We > can consider a once off notification to WE account holders regarding > the option to subscribe to the news letter once this option has been > implemented for new account holders. However -- this would need to be > an affirmative action to subscribe rather than a default that everyone > gets the newsletter unless they opt out. >> > > Good, that's a reasonable approach. > > > << Personally, I'd like to see both -- they serve different audiences > and I don't see one replacing and / or duplicating the other. > WikiEducator has extensive reach in the developing world -- places > where connectivity is difficult, unreliable and expensive. The > newsletter / WE magazine is an innovative way to "connect" the > "disconnected" and keep those who want to stay abreast of what is > happening online. Notifying teachers around the world of exemplary > resources that may be of use. Profiling and sharing experiences of the > efforts in setting up national OER collaborations (eg Uganda, > Bangladesh, India etc.) --- These experiences are invaluable for > other countries trying to bootstrap OER. We could have a low- > resolution version to simplify local reproduction and keep costs to a > minimum. Certainly, within the formal education sector -- there are > still large numbers of educators who do not surf the blog sphere --- > lets cast a wide net for open education :-) >> > > Very well, but there's no reason that a blog and a dead-trees > newsletter couldn't have the same content. We could have the official > news blog, and when there have been enough posts to fill however many > pages we want the newsletter to be, we release the same content as > PDF, RTF, ODT, etc. (Our actually printing and posting it sounds > expensive, I assume that's not the intent here?) > > One potential issue with treeware is that some countries use Letter > size and some use A4. (My wife's doing an LLB through a school in the > UK from here in the U.S. where A4 is annoyingly hard to find, so we've > been hit in the head by this one.) > > > << Hopefully there will be more people than Wayne, Jim posting -- we > should also include posts from Council members, workgroup leaders, > featured teachers etc. This model would need some sort of editorial > team to oversee alignment with community values etc. >> > > Valerie edited the workgroup charter to have us continue to oversee > whatever blogs come out of this process. That's okay with me, at > least as a starting point. > > > << We definitely need an outlet that isn't edited --- we just need a > clear communication / disclaimer that the posts are the opinions of > the individuals writing them. >> > > Very good, so then it seems our workgroup should refine the approach > of having three blogs: > > 1. Terra Incognita if possible, or if not then a sort of "Nova Terra > Incognita". > > 2. An official newsletter blog, the contents of which are also > periodically released in paper format. > > 3. An open blog where WikiEducators can easily add posts and there's > light-handed moderation. > > -=Steve=- > > > > > -- Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D. Director, International Centre for Open Education, Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand. Board of Directors, OER Foundation. Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org Mobile +64 21 2436 380 Skype: WGMNZ1 Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
