<div dir="ltr">Hey Dave,<div>I love the idea and the intent. It would be a tremendous resource for parents to have a site to go to not only to get valuable information, but also to contribute and send feedback. And, volunteers wouldn't have to recreate the wheel as much because there'd be that historical content within the site. I think so much of what we learn about the programs and events comes from just talking to other parents at the school. That's great, but I do feel like that communication method leaves out a decent percentage of parents. So, if we could digitize that word-of-mouth type of content and build an interactive site around it, I think it'd be great. The challenge is going to be promoting it and getting parents to adopt it as a go-to resource. We don't want to create all of this structure for a site that only a handful of parents will visit. So, I'm not sure what the next step would be. Do we build it, hoping people will come or do we build a case for it and present it to the school administration, PTA? I do not know how to navigate all of the different parties involved. Is it a foundation? I'm not sure what we call it. </div>
<div style>But, I'm in. Maybe we form a mini committee around it and just take some initial steps. You'd obviously be the technology expert - we could have other committee members that have specific roles. </div><div style>
<br></div><div style>Thanks,</div><div style>Jonathan</div>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 1:07 PM, Dave Allen Barker Jr <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dave@1.0ne.org" target="_blank">dave@1.0ne.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div text="" bgcolor="">
<p>Kim Speece (PTA co-president) and I got a chance to talk on
Friday about online and general communication efforts in service
of the Sagamore Hills ES community. So, I'll describe my ideas,
and I hope to hear feedback, or ideas of your own, from y'all.
Participating in this discussion so far are: myself, Kim, Monica,
Heather, Vera, John, Jonathan, and Sally—and anyone is welcome to
<a title="sagamore.online Info Page" href="http://list.9.0ne.org/list/listinfo/sagamore.online" target="_blank">join</a>
or <a title="The sagamore.online Archives" href="http://list.9.0ne.org/archive/sagamore.online/" target="_blank">follow
along</a>.<br>
</p>
<p>Short version of what I'd like to do:<br>
</p>
<ul>
<li>Buy the domain name "<a href="http://sagamoreparents.org" target="_blank">sagamoreparents.org</a>" ($10/y) through the
PTA's existing Dreamhost account<br>
</li>
<li>Establish email discussion lists @<a href="http://groups.sagamoreparents.org" target="_blank">groups.sagamoreparents.org</a>
for things like general Sagamore and per-grade discussion
amongst parents </li>
<li>Promote the mailing through the PTA (newsletter)</li>
<li>New website (first at <a href="http://dev.sagamoreparents.org" target="_blank">dev.sagamoreparents.org</a>) where we work
on a new reference website for all Sagamore parent static
information needs</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Should I/we do it?</strong><br>
</p>
<p>And now… a lot of words.<br>
</p>
<h2>Archived Mailing Lists<br>
</h2>
<p>Short version: synergies of information distribution, parent
involvement, volunteer knowledge transfer, and school promotion,
can be ours by simply <strong>routing all email exchange through
archived mailing </strong><strong>(discussion) </strong><strong>lists</strong>.<br>
</p>
<h3>Scenarios</h3>
<ul>
<li>A parent wonders about the state of the pond beside the school<br>
</li>
<dl>
<dt><em>Without</em> archived mailing lists</dt>
<dd>The parent chats with their nearest neighbor or emails the
PTA. Information sources are limited and the answer finds a
limited audience and is lost to the future.</dd>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt><em>With</em> archived mailing list</dt>
<dd>A message to the school-wide, general-interest mailing list
allows the PTA to respond, as well as any other random parent
who can add some information. Other parents on the list learn
something they would not have otherwise, and the discussion
can be pointed to (in the archive) when the question
inevitably comes up again.</dd>
</dl>
<li>Organizers put on Science Night</li>
<dl>
<dt><em>Without</em> archived mailing lists</dt>
<dd>A handful of organizers begin work via email. They solicit
volunteers through the weekly PTA newsletter. Volunteers are
addressed individually by the organizers, often with
repetition of information. Many ideas are passed around, and
the best are utilized for that year's event. The experience
of the effort are lost to personal email boxes.</dd>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt><em>With</em> archived mailing lists</dt>
<dd>A handful of organizers begin work via a mailing list. They
solicit volunteers through the weekly PTA newsletter, and
those with extra interest can get up to speed with the
organizers' work by reviewing the mailing list archive.
Volunteers are addressed on the mailing list as well, where
answers to individual volunteer questions can benefit others.
More enthusiasm and resources come to the project as
volunteers get each other excited. When next year rolls
around, the experiences of the prior year can be reviewed
through the mailing list archive.</dd>
</dl>
<li>PTA records a meeting's minutes<br>
</li>
<dl>
<dt><em>Without</em> archived mailing lists</dt>
<dd>A single meeting minutes document is generated, and nothing
more comes of it.<br>
</dd>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt><em>With</em> archived mailing lists</dt>
<dd>A single meeting minutes document is generated and posted to
the mailing list. Parents on the list can stay informed, and
the list can host related discussion. The PTA can participate
as much or little as they'd like in resulting discussion—even
just having access to other parent sentiment is useful to the
PTA.</dd>
</dl>
</ul>
<h3>Implementation</h3>
<p>A couple mailing list systems come to my mind, of course there
are others that could be considered too.<br>
</p>
<p>One option is <a title="Mailman, the GNU Mailing List Manager" href="https://gnu.org/software/mailman/" target="_blank">Mailman</a>, software
that can run on any hosting service (like <a title="Sagamore
Hills PTA Dreamhost account - Parents" href="http://www.9.0ne.org/mw/index.php?title=Sagamore_Hills_PTA_Dreamhost_account&oldid=548" target="_blank">Dreamhost
we have now</a>)<a title="Mailman, the GNU Mailing List Manager" href="https://gnu.org/software/mailman/" target="_blank"></a>. It allows users
and admins to manage subscriptions through both email and the web,
and generates web accessible archives. It's what powers <a title="sagamore.online Info Page" href="http://list.9.0ne.org/list/listinfo/sagamore.online" target="_blank">this
list</a> and <a title="list.9.0ne.org Mailing Lists" href="http://list.9.0ne.org/list/listinfo" target="_blank">others</a>.<br>
</p>
<p>Another option is <a href="https://groups.google.com/" target="_blank">Google
Groups</a>, which, in addition to what Mailman does, allows
posting to the list through the web (not just email). Lists would
be under Google's domain (@<a href="http://googlegroups.com" target="_blank">googlegroups.com</a>) for free. Our own
domain could be used with Google Groups by using <a href="http://apps.google.com/" target="_blank">Google Apps</a>, which is <a title="Google Apps for Nonprofits - Google Apps Help" href="http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&topic=29190&ctx=topic&answer=2858465" target="_blank">free
for non-profits</a> (is the PTA a non-profit?) and <a title="Google Apps for Education - Google Apps Help" href="http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2856827&topic=29190&ctx=topic" target="_blank">education</a>
(would have to be associated with the school), or <a title="Pricing – Google Apps for Business | United States" href="http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html" target="_blank">$50
per year (per user</a>, but I think we'd need only one user to
create groups (mailing lists)).<br>
</p>
<p>I think I'm leaning towards Mailman, for the control and
simplicity (once setup (which I can do)), but there's an appeal to
Google doing the hosting, and we may decide to lean on other of
their service offerings anyway. We can always switch either way,
without much pain, if setup right.<br>
</p>
<h2>Website for Parents</h2>
<p><strong>Mostly, we just need to put time in curating the content
of the site.</strong> But I'd like to talk a bit about
platform.<br>
</p>
<p>Currently we (<a href="http:///sagamorepta.org/" target="_blank">sagamorepta.org</a>)
uses <a title="WordPress › Blog Tool, Publishing Platform, and
CMS" href="https://wordpress.org/" target="_blank">Wordpress</a> with a
customized <a title="zeeSynergie | ThemeZee.com" href="http://themezee.com/zeesynergie/" target="_blank">theme</a>. To refresh
the look, I think we should use Wordpress's current default theme
(<a title="WordPress › Twenty Twelve « Free WordPress Themes" href="http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/twentytwelve" target="_blank">twenty-twelve</a>)
(well tested, supported, and featureful) and create a <a title="Child Themes « WordPress Codex" href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes" target="_blank">child theme</a>
with some of John's recent "Be more." design (ala Sagamore's
district hosted site). I've made <a title="Sagamore Hills PTA
website - Parents" href="http://www.9.0ne.org/w/Sagamore_Hills_PTA_website" target="_blank">a place
where we can document other ideas</a>.<br>
</p>
<p>I'm also enamored by the idea of the site being a wiki so anyone
can "scratch their itch" to the benefit of others. <a href="http://www.9.0ne.org/w/Main_Page" target="_blank">I've been experimenting.</a><br>
</p>
<p><a title="Learn more about Google Sites" href="http://www.google.com/sites/help/intl/en/overview.html" target="_blank">Google
Sites</a> might be neat. Similar to Google Groups mentioned
earlier in how it can optionally (via Google Apps) be under our
own domain name.<br>
</p>
<h2>Going Google</h2>
<p>Google got my attention last year when I was helping <a href="http://www.ogycs.org/" target="_blank">Oak Grove Young Children's School</a>
establish their own web presence (prior <a href="http://ogumc.org/ycs/" target="_blank">they were hanging off Oak Grove
United Methodist Church</a>). I took <a title="Google Apps
Test 2012-01 - Internal OGYCS" href="http://internal.ogycs.org/projects/website-2011/google-apps-test-2012-01" target="_blank">notes
while I tested a Google Apps account for them</a>, playing with
Groups, website (Sites), Calendar(ing), document sharing (now
Drive), and more. It was way more solution than they needed, but
that might not be the case for us.<br>
</p>
<p>I'm conflicted on "going Google". I'm excited to roll with a
major innovator, and leveraging new ways of working. I'm weary of
relying on a single vendor, and we still have untapped potential
in the tools we use now. Plus, we can always selectively test out
individual Google product offerings (I can imagine <a href="https://www.google.com/intl/en_US/drive/start/index.html" target="_blank">Google
Drive</a> being useful).<br>
</p>
<h2>Domain Name</h2>
<p>It's been suggested we should have a new domain name, leaving
"<a href="http://sagamorehillspta.org" target="_blank">sagamorehillspta.org</a>" to speak more directly to the PTA.<br>
</p>
<p>As I think about shaking things up a bit, and getting parents
more involved and communicating, I wonder if doing that somewhat
distanced from the school and the PTA is indeed the right answer.
I would hate to see discussion stifled on mailing lists because
the PTA didn't feel comfortable hosting particular discussion
through their domain.<br>
</p>
<p>I was thinking "<a href="http://sagamorehillses.org" target="_blank">sagamorehillses.org</a>" at first, but now think
"<a href="http://sagamoreparents.org" target="_blank">sagamoreparents.org</a>" is better. That's really the audience I'd
like to reach.<br>
</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>There's more I could blab about, but I'll stop for now.
Thoughts? Thanks.<br>
</p>
</div>
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