Questions from NTC Blogging Panel

I was reading the questions from the NTC Blogging Panel. They came up with some great questions.

Listed below are the questions I would like to explore more. I will write about them either on here, on the Nonprofit Blog Exchange, or on Netsquared.

1. It is important to know who your audience is, understand that it may change as you go along, who you attract. So how do we do this?
2. What is your goal? To educate, build community, fundraise. Focus on one to start with.
3. What is the true cost involved in blogging? What's the management time, how many hours, time is already short, now you want me to blog?
4. What's the impact of blogging in a distributed organization with a lot of chapters, where they might write things which do not reflect central policy, and may reflect poorly. What do you do?
5. What resources are there for blogging (see the right side of this blog!)?
6. When thinking about how to generate content for blogs, there's often a lot of internal communication about current news that can be used externally - strategic. Target where communication is happening to generate content without doing new work
7. How do you rally citizen blog armies or communities of bloggers around a cause?
8. How do you get other influential bloggers to link to your org/cause's blog?
9. How do you get people motivated around issues with blogs like the March of Dimes Share Your Story site does?
10. How do you teach blog etiquette (the one person who makes it a personal platform - me me me )?
11. What are the advantages between blogs and message boards? What are the differences between blogs, wikis, message boards, etc and how do I decide which to use? In combination?
12. Are people using blogs as community building tools? Examples?

History Podcast

Interesting article titled "Podcast technology helps students at home" about a history teacher podcasting.

Here is part of the article-

Some students usually can't wait to get out of class. Others, such as 14-year-old Adrienne Graskemper, can't wait to listen to her teacher Eric Langhorst again and again and again.

Langhorst is an eighth-grade history teacher in the Liberty School District, and his secret weapon is podcasting. He is among a handful of teachers who use podcasts to help students review for exams and to supplement their education outside the classroom.

Because podcasting is relatively new, it's difficult to gauge how widespread it is in the classroom. Education experts specializing in information technology simply say the number is small.

Podcasts are like radio shows that can be downloaded to a personal computer or an MP3 player, allowing listeners to tune in anytime, anywhere.

Langhorst's Web site - speakingofhistory.blogspot.com - is a mix of blogging and podcasting. Blogs are online diaries that allow readers to post feedback.

On the site, Langhorst interviews civic leaders and a television director. He has links to other sites that he thinks are interesting. He reviews lessons so students can better prepare for tests, and he hosts a forum for student comments.

"It's just another tool to create an environment in which
they want to learn about history," he said.

And students seem to appreciate his efforts. "I listen to it before I go to sleep," Graskemper said. "I think it makes social studies easier than my other classes."

The complete article is at Podcast technology helps students at home and the blog is at Speaking of History...

Blogging - Ways Nonprofits Can Use Blogs

I read a very interesting blog entry written by Britt on Netsquared titled "10 Ways Nonprofits Can Use Blogs".

After reading this entry, I started thinking of ways different places can use blogs. I realized some of these 10 ways can also be applied to nonprofit technology consultants and to technology companies providing services to nonprofits.

Nonprofit Technology Conference 2006 Logo Collage

Even though I will not be attending NTC, I created a logo collage of all the science fair exhibitors and sponsors. This idea was mentioned on the N-TEN Blog and I decided to volunteer to create it.

Educational Technology Links #1

• CU Online
  Education Technology News and Resources for PK-12 Teachers and Student Teachers
• Syndication for Higher Ed
  Exploring emerging practice in RSS, podcasting, and blogging on Higher Ed websites.
• collegewebeditor.com: web, marketing & PR in higher ed
  News, tips and ideas for people taking care of websites and online marketing in colleges and universities.
• Ideas and thoughts from an EdTech
• http://misterteacher.blogspot.com/
• Reflections of a Techie

Technorati

I was browsing Blogher and found an interesting entry titled What is Technorati Anyway? . It was very interested to read the conversation there. From that entry I learned about another blog entry about Technorati titled Technorati and Moveable Type.

What do you think about Technorati?