This came through my Facebook stream a few days ago:
Click on the image to follow the link.
While the video isn’t the real story, in fact it is just an advertizing video for Connections Academy . On this, a slow blogging day, the story is how Connections Academy have used their own YouTube channel (and for that matter their own Facebook account ) to get their message out. Using the social spaces that their potential students are likely to populate (with the obvious exclusions of those how don’t have access due to the digital divide). It also is a space for those who are involved to have a sense of community – I mean let’s face it if you are taking your schooling online you must then have access to a computer and an Internet connection.
And it isn’t just Connections Academy – although they do seem to be one of the more active on my radar screen. And it isn’t just limited to the cyber charter schools, as I’ve seen a number of the supplemental virtual schools using these mediums as well. Who are some of the others? Use the comments to highlight some of the other social media being used by various K-12 online learning programs.
Announcing: The VHSM Newsletter.
The coming year will mark the five year anniversary of Virtual High School Meanderings and, like many bloggers, I have been thinking about the new year and reflecting on what that means for this blog (and more on that latter in the week). Much of this reflection has been through the lens of the tips that Darren provides at ProBlogger Blog Tips .
One tip that he gave a few weeks ago was an entry entitled 6 Reasons Why You Need to Consider Email as a Communication Strategy on Your Blog . In that entry he described the traffic that gets generated every time he sends out an e-mail newsletter. So using the tip Darren provides in his entry, along with the suggestions I found at , I would like to announce:
VHSM Newsletter
Basically, the VHSM Newsletter will be delivered via e-mail using a Google group. It will include links to specific entries on this blog, but also special items that do not appear in the Virtual High School Meanderings blog.
If you are interested in receiving the VHSM Newsletter , please sign up at:
http://groups.google.ca/group/vhsm
Note that the settings on this group allow only the group administrator (i.e., me) to send messages to the group and see who has joined the group. So joining this Google group should only increase your e-mail traffic by one message per month. My goal will be to send this newsletter on the third Monday of each month.
Now all I need is a logo for my newsletter. Any volunteers out there who would like to design something for me?