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<p>Thanks everybody, I'm getting excited! :)<br>
</p>
<p>I'm going to start new threads for the projects I think we've
identified (by priority):<br>
</p>
<ol>
<li>Mailing lists to facilitate community, activity, feedback, and
reference<br>
</li>
<li>Website for parents<br>
</li>
<li>Website for volunteer activity (PTA)<br>
</li>
</ol>
<p>One issue they may share is domain name. I'm wondering if
something like sagamorehillses.org, sagamorehes.org, or ? might be
better for the likes of project 1 and 2 above. If I don't hear
otherwise, we'll default to our existing sagamorehillspta.org.
Remember, we're only talking about new domain name / web/email
addresses here—our current domain (and the services it provides)
need not change.<br>
</p>
<p>Thanks, y'all!<br>
</p>
<br>
On 03/10/2013 01:07 PM, Dave Allen Barker Jr wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:513CBDE8.2080708@1.0ne.org" type="cite">
<meta http-equiv="Context-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<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 moz-do-not-send="true" title="sagamore.online
Info Page"
href="http://list.9.0ne.org/list/listinfo/sagamore.online">join</a>
or <a moz-do-not-send="true" title="The sagamore.online
Archives"
href="http://list.9.0ne.org/archive/sagamore.online/">follow
along</a>.<br>
</p>
<p>Short version of what I'd like to do:<br>
</p>
<ul>
<li>Buy the domain name "sagamoreparents.org" ($10/y) through
the PTA's existing Dreamhost account<br>
</li>
<li>Establish email discussion lists @groups.sagamoreparents.org
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 dev.sagamoreparents.org) 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 moz-do-not-send="true" title="Mailman, the
GNU Mailing List Manager"
href="https://gnu.org/software/mailman/">Mailman</a>, software
that can run on any hosting service (like <a
moz-do-not-send="true" title="Sagamore Hills PTA Dreamhost
account - Parents"
href="http://www.9.0ne.org/mw/index.php?title=Sagamore_Hills_PTA_Dreamhost_account&oldid=548">Dreamhost
we have now</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
moz-do-not-send="true" title="sagamore.online Info Page"
href="http://list.9.0ne.org/list/listinfo/sagamore.online">this
list</a> and <a moz-do-not-send="true" title="list.9.0ne.org
Mailing Lists" href="http://list.9.0ne.org/list/listinfo">others</a>.<br>
</p>
<p>Another option is <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://groups.google.com/">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 (@googlegroups.com) for free. Our own domain could be
used with Google Groups by using <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://apps.google.com/">Google Apps</a>, which is <a
moz-do-not-send="true" 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">free
for non-profits</a> (is the PTA a non-profit?) and <a
moz-do-not-send="true" 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">education</a>
(would have to be associated with the school), or <a
moz-do-not-send="true" title="Pricing – Google Apps for
Business | United States"
href="http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html">$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 moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http:///sagamorepta.org/">sagamorepta.org</a>) uses <a
moz-do-not-send="true" title="WordPress › Blog Tool,
Publishing Platform, and CMS" href="https://wordpress.org/">Wordpress</a>
with a customized <a moz-do-not-send="true" title="zeeSynergie
| ThemeZee.com" href="http://themezee.com/zeesynergie/">theme</a>.
To refresh the look, I think we should use Wordpress's current
default theme (<a moz-do-not-send="true" title="WordPress ›
Twenty Twelve « Free WordPress Themes"
href="http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/twentytwelve">twenty-twelve</a>)
(well tested, supported, and featureful) and create a <a
moz-do-not-send="true" title="Child Themes « WordPress Codex"
href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes">child theme</a>
with some of John's recent "Be more." design (ala Sagamore's
district hosted site). I've made <a moz-do-not-send="true"
title="Sagamore Hills PTA website - Parents"
href="http://www.9.0ne.org/w/Sagamore_Hills_PTA_website">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
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.9.0ne.org/w/Main_Page">I've
been experimenting.</a><br>
</p>
<p><a moz-do-not-send="true" title="Learn more about Google Sites"
href="http://www.google.com/sites/help/intl/en/overview.html">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
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.ogycs.org/">Oak Grove
Young Children's School</a> establish their own web presence
(prior <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://ogumc.org/ycs/">they
were hanging off Oak Grove United Methodist Church</a>). I
took <a moz-do-not-send="true" title="Google Apps Test 2012-01
- Internal OGYCS"
href="http://internal.ogycs.org/projects/website-2011/google-apps-test-2012-01">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 moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.google.com/intl/en_US/drive/start/index.html">Google
Drive</a> being useful).<br>
</p>
<h2>Domain Name</h2>
<p>It's been suggested we should have a new domain name, leaving
"sagamorehillspta.org" 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 "sagamorehillses.org" at first, but now think
"sagamoreparents.org" 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>
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