Stratepedia Projects archives

5 ways to get social with Stratepedia online

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Time for Friday Five! As we wrap up the first week of our website and blog, I thought it might be worth reminding everyone of five ways you can interact with us online:

1. Stratepedia Blog

Our blog is our core communication mechanism. Amber and I post at least three new items a week, and interesting things we’ve found online are aggregated and posted daily from our Delicious account (more on that in a minute). Got something to say about one of our posts? Leaving a comment is easy–just scroll to the end of the article and type in your two cents.

If you use an RSS reader like Google Reader or NetNewsWire you can subscribe to the blog and never miss a story. If not, there are other ways to follow along, such as–

2. E-mail

Don’t forget, if you’re not quite ready to jump on board with RSS or social media, you can still follow our blog by good ol’ e-mail. Just head over to our subscriptions page and follow the e-mail subscription link. You’ll get a message about once a day from us containing anything new we’ve posted to our blog in the last 24 hours (if we don’t post anything new you won’t get a new message).

Feel free to reply to the message, too–unlike some other mailing lists you may belong to, your replies will go to an account I keep an eye on. We’re all happy to hear your thoughts.

3. Twitter

Our Twitter feed includes direct links to Stratepedia Blog articles, links from our Delicious account (again, more on that in a moment), and retweeted posts we find interesting. Send a message to @stratepedia to let us know what you think.

4. Facebook

For those of you more into Facebook, we post links to new blog articles on our fan page as they’re published. You can leave comments there or use the fan page’s discussion area to get in touch with us.

5. Delicious

Do you bookmark what you find online? Why not use a social bookmark service? We use Delicious. A couple of times a day I skim through my RSS reader and, as I find things online I think you might like, I save them to Delicious. If you subscribe to our blog or follow us on Twitter you’ll get these links, but you can also add us as a friend on Delicious (or subscribe to our Delicious RSS feed) and never be short of things to read online.

Sometime in the next few weeks, I’m going to post details on how we manage our social media presence, for those of you interested in extending your message (while operating on a budget). In the meantime, stay warm and have a great weekend!

Illustration: Matt Hamm on Flickr

By Aaron Sumner | December 11th, 2009 | View Comments

Researchers using social networking, iPhone-bearing citizen scientists to collect data

CNN reports that technologies like social networks and iPhones are helping “citizen scientists” collect data on climate change. As photographs and other data are collected, they are sent in real-time to researchers, complete with GPS coordinates. In addition, the article notes that “researchers at several universities are working on iPhone applications and computer programs that could analyze digital photos of plant leaves and automatically identify the plant’s species.” These applications are being developed to ensure data are collected properly and are suitable for research.

For what it’s worth, we’ve looked to the iPhone for its potential at gathering data from the field since its debut nearly two years ago. While the Stratepedia toolkit will continue to be web-based, we’re working toward mobile-optimized versions of tools like Coaching Calendar and Tutoractive to make them easier to use when you’re on the go. Stay tuned to our blog for updates on these services.

(via Switched)

By Aaron Sumner | May 6th, 2009 | View Comments

Learning Labs and After School Literacy websites unavailable Thursday, Feb. 5

I’ll be performing some software updates on the Learning Labs and After School Literacy websites this coming Thursday, February 5, at 8:00 AM CST The sites will be briefly unavailable during that time. I don’t expect the updates to take more than a few minutes, but am giving my self an hour-long window to address the issues.

If you’re planning to use either of these sites Thursday morning, now’s the time to tell me so I can reschedule.

By Aaron Sumner | February 2nd, 2009 | View Comments

CRL’s After School Literacy project kicks off

In case you haven’t heard, the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning, of which Stratepedia is part, has received funds from the Wal-Mart Foundation to start a project promoting literacy in out-of-school environments. We’ll be partnering with Boys and Girls Clubs of America to extend the scalability and reach of interventions like Strategic Tutoring, Possible Selves, and Fusion Reading.

The Stratepedia team will all be working on this project alongside Mike Hock, Don Deshler, Irma Brasseur, and Josh Saunders. For our part, we’re taking a close look at how volunteer mentors and tutors can be brought up to speed on the aforementioned interventions, in a reasonable amount of time, without degrading the models. We’re looking toward technology to help accomplish this, as a support for our usual professional development models, data tracking, and communication. Look for some of these new tools to roll out this summer.

The Wal-Mart Foundation sponsored a media event in Lawrence last Wednesday. About 100 people and most of the local media outlets attended, as did Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, Don, and representatives of the Wal-Mart Foundation and Boys and Girls Clubs. You can read more about it on the CRL’s website (and see a photo of Don and Governor Sebelius holding the giant check!), then head over to the brand new site we’re developing for the project. It’s a bit sparse right now, but will become the news hub of this project in particular and things we find pertaining to out-of-school literacy opportunities.

After School Literacy Project at the Center for Research on Learning

By Aaron Sumner | May 30th, 2008 | View Comments