Connections
Using TED in the classroom
I am not generally someone to push a lot of instructional ideas in my posts because I’m not a teacher by training, although I spend time talking with educators on almost a daily basis with my work. However, the following link was an exception I thought worth making for several reasons. First, it’s a great example of free, cloud-based content polled from the TED website that gives students something to ponder and aspire to achieve. Second, it’s the direction that so much of education is going – shared ideas and information that can be pulled into the classroom environment by creative teachers. Third, it is really cool! (maybe that should have been first).
This Year’s 10 Best TED Talks To Share With Students | Edudemic
Connections
Another take on multi-lingual
Well here I am on a Friday afternoon, trying to wrap up the week’s tasks before going off to high school football. Ahh, the ‘back-to-school’ life.
On my last post we were looking for responses to a question about online content and dealing with different languages. Specifically, we created a poll that asked, “How does your district deal with translation of online news and information (web, email, etc.) for English as a second language members of your community?”.
Well, we didn’t get a lot of action on our first poll, but the ones that we did receive provided some thoughtful comment on the question. Seventy-five percent said they use Google Translate and twenty-five percent only offered online content in English. All of those who used Google Translate either make manual adjustments from that auto-translation, or used manual translation when dealing with high priority documents and communications. The respondents only offering online content in English were looking into options for online translation.
What we have learned at Relatrix regarding this issue is that no answer to online translation works for all schools or under all circumstances. That’s why we provide our online contact center customers with a combination of methods – ranging from publishing and posting content in each target language manually, or linking messages to a web view that can be auto-translated.
If translation is an important issue at your school or district, please find a moment in your busy day to take our poll. The poll will remain open and active through the end of September, and we’ll share any additional interesting responses and comments we receive.
Here’s the link – http://www.relatrix.com/polls/online-translation/
Have a great weekend.
Connections
Communicating In Multiple Languages
Today there is a growing population of English language learners in public education. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, “The number of school-age children (children ages 5 -17) who spoke a language other than English at home rose from 4.7 to 11.2 million between 1980 and 2009, or from 10 to 21 percent of the population in this age range.” Of that 11.2 million population 72% spoke Spanish; 13% spoke other Indo-European languages such as French, Italian or German; 11% spoke Asian or Pacific Islander languages and the remaining 4% spoke another language.
These statistics present challenges to school PR professionals as well as campus administrators. On one hand we need to reach out to these audiences of parents and family members, because engagement is an important ingredient in formulating successful student outcomes. On the other hand, with ever tightening central office and school budgets delivering all information and communications in multiple languages can be expensive and sometimes fraught with inaccuracies.
The primary methods applied to translation for non-English audiences seem to fall into two areas. Manual translation, by language translation professionals, provides the most accurate results, but can often add substantial cost to each message. Additionally, when composing and publishing time critical news or information a manual approach can result in substantial delays for both English and non-English audiences. Auto-translation provides a faster (almost immediate) translation, but can introduce problems related to context, word usage and transliteration.
I am hoping you will share with us how your district and schools are dealing with translation of online news and information by answering a quick poll.
http://relatrix.ezcommunicator.net/edu/relatrix/TakePoll.asp?App=0&iPollId=5
We will share the results of this poll and how Relatrix’ Online Contact Center solutions can provide practical and flexible methods of handling translation for your school district.
Regards,
Mark
Connections
School Choice and School Marketing
Last Friday (July 1st) the Miami Herald carried a story about Governor Rick Scott signing five new bills addressing school choice in Florida. The article quoted the governor, saying his goal was to make sure ‘everyone has an opportunity for a great education’. Representatives from the Broward County Teachers Union, complained that the laws were ‘shameful’ and the state’s resources should be focused on helping traditional public schools. The effects of the new laws will make it easier for parents to choose K-12 educational options, other than public schools, and raises the bar for public schools to meet acceptable performance standards.
Regardless of which side of the argument about school choice you come down on, the nature of K-12 education in this country is changing, and will continue to change for the foreseeable future. Whether you feel those changes should be focused on adjusting the existing public education framework or providing alternatives to force reform across the entire industry, educational organizations are facing greater challenges to attract and retain students.
This brings up the issue of marketing your school or district to a new class of consumer – the educational services buyer. We are used to this idea in higher education, but many education administrators remain uncomfortable with market-oriented concepts applied to K-12. Historically, K-12 education has been classed as a public good – meaning it should be available to all (non excludeable) and have little (approximately zero) cost to add one more student.
As a consequence of an extended economic downturn; increases in non-documented immigration into the US; increasing requirements for re-training or re-teaching in the post-secondary environment, and many other factors, educational change (reform for the activist-minded) has finally reached a tipping point. We will not put the genie back in the bottle and we will not completely reverse the trend toward more choice (read competition) in the provision of educational services.
Many school PR professionals still look at the issue of communications (and hence marketing) as a matter of media relations, choosing to believe that the local news outlets are the most influential in forming community opinions. However, recent studies from the Pew Research Center and others show a growing trend in Internet users who seek news and information through other means.
As of 2010, eighty-four percent (84%) of 30 to 49 year-olds were online and over two-thirds of households had broadband connectivity. There is also an increase in usage of the Internet for news and information, with 92% of adult Internet users reading e-mail and 78% getting news or information on a ‘product or service they are thinking of buying’.
All this adds up to the conclusion many in school communications already know. Whether you are a public school PR professional or a private, charter, or virtual school administrator you need to be more effective in marketing your services. Audience segmentation is one of the crucial concepts behind effective marketing so you can target the message and method(s) of delivery. If you segment your audience by the relationships types they have with your school you will likely develop categories similar to the following.
1. Frequent Relationship – These are the parents, staff, volunteers and others in your community that interact with your school(s) on a regular basis. They are looking for day-to-day operational information ranging from events or alerts at school to major successes or policy decisions being made.
2. Occasional Relationship – This includes voters, special interest groups, the media and those who are interested in one or a few specific topics or only ‘high level’ information about your school.
3. Potential Relationship – These are the parents, staff or community members who are considering your city to relocate and may wish to establish one of the above relationships with your school or organization. These users need to be cultivated so if or when they are ready to ‘make a move’ your school system is at the top their list.
There are multiple ways in which you can segment the different online users that makeup your school’s potential audience. While the methods and tools that you choose to communicate and engage your audience are important, they are secondary to a commitment to reach out to these different audiences with targeted information they want and to engage them in your schools both with their feedback and their resources.
Connections
Visit Us At NSPRA And Keep Cool In The Texas Heat.
Summer is upon us! Who would believe time could fly this quickly? Speaking of flying, Relatrix is flying to San Antonio, TX this month for the 2011 National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) national seminar. We hope to see you there.
Not only will we be introducing EZPartner, our newest contact center module for matching your schools with community partner resources, we will also help you stay cool in the Texas heat with some ice cold refreshments. Just stop by our booth at the NSPRA Market Place on Monday, July 11, 2011 between 9:30 am and 4:00 pm or Tuesday, July 12, 2011 between 8:30 am and 4:00 pm. One of friendly staff will gladly share some icy treats with you, and show you how our online contact solutions can help your district improve communications and community engagement.
We’ve also updated our website recently to include a new blog – Relatrix Connections. Visit www.relatrix.com to see the new design. You can sign up for Relatrix’ news, browse upcoming training webinars for your staff and administrators or read about our best practices using the Online Contact Center.
While attending NSPRA sessions be sure to attend Relatrix’ Goldmine session on Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 1:00 pm. Relatrix’ President, Mark Franke, will highlight our work with a leading Colorado school district on developing and deploying our partner management module last year. He will have some useful take-aways for engaging your community partners before, during and after implementing a new application like EZPartner.
Keep cool this summer with Relatrix, and please visit us at NSPRA. You won’t be disappointed.
Connections
What’s An Online Contact Center?
When speaking with communications and PR professional about Relatrix I am often asked to explain what we mean by ‘online contact center’. Because I work day-t0-day with our customers and software I often forget that the idea of integrating digital communications functionality and making it easily accessible to users isn’t as universally understood as I thought – or hoped.
Here’s a quick primer on the key concepts that make an online contact center different from other approaches to making digital communications more effective in your school, district, organization or city.
1. Users manage their own contact information and preferences
All users have an online contact center account that they can update from your website. When their job or ISP changes and they need to update their email address – they can. If they change cellphone carriers and want to update where they receive text messages – no problem. If they change interests from one school or department to another and want to alter their subscriptions – piece of cake.
2. Users arrive through the front door or the back door
Many digital communications system either allow your users to sign-up through your website (subscriber), or allow you to load them manually, or automatically from a list or database. With our online contact center you can use both methods. This allows your parents, staff, members, citizens, etc. to have an account they can update, but also allow website visitors to sign-up for an account.
3. You combine communication channels and functionality – and save
The way your users want to be communicated with requires you to reach them on more channels than just e-mail. And the manner in which they want to interact with your school, organization or city means you needs multiple tools to go beyond notification and also respond and engage your users. Bringing all the different channels and engagement tools together in one system means you save time and money.
4. You manage multiple relationships with your users
Ever have a parent at your school who is also on staff, or a volunteer who also works at a company that partners with your organization? It is important to identify and manage the multiple relationships each user has so you can get a clear view of how they engage with you. An online contact center helps you define the many relationships that your users can have with your organization and then allows you to communicate with and engage them based on that relationship.