Website Redesign
We’re working on changes to the site. These will include a new look, class materials for teachers, and eventually a forum for teachers and philosophers to connect and discuss the practical day to day aspect of teaching children philosophy. We are also considering an organizational tool for interns, volunteers and employees to keep track of tasks and events.
What do you think we should change about or add to the site, and why? Comments welcome!
(Note that all materials and features will be available for free.)
I’d like to see more information on what kinds of things you talk to the kids about. What are some of their answers, and can we infer anything from them? As for the design, I like it simple, but a little more color might be good.
Oh, and the video was very cool.
Marco
August 19, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Excellent idea. This will definitely be in the materials we provide for teachers, and I can also write some blog posts diving into particular discussions. There were some audio issues with the classes we taped, so I need to go through and see if I can figure out a way to make the conversation audible enough to post the videos. (Lesson learned, we will be using real cameras with separate microphones for future classes!).
Thanks!
Dan
August 19, 2009 at 4:00 pm
I definitely think you should leverage social media more. I know you have a Facebook page for EtE, but you should get a specific Twitter page and even think about getting a Flickr and YouTube page as well. I think Vimeo offers much higher quality video tools and channels, but YouTube is the “Big Kahoona”, so you should first go with what the masses go with.
I’d like to see upcoming events and donation goals and who you have given money to.
You should integrate the blog into your site instead of having separate sites. It makes for a more cohesive experience and allows users to jump all over your site without going to different URL’s. Also, fire up a Google Reader account or Delicious account specifically for EtE and bookmark or share links to articles in your space about legislation or schools who are adopting your methodology. Integrate these articles into the site leveraging the API’s from those services. There’s no reason you can’t use them as the host and pull the content to your site. It’s basically a ubiquitous CMS.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Good luck and keep up the awesome work!
periodicdesign
August 19, 2009 at 3:13 pm
What are the pros and cons of having a twitter page for the organization, vs its executive director? I’ve seen organizations do both.
Flickr doesn’t really fit, we haven’t been taking promotional pictures, though that has come up often as a suggestion from board members, advisory board members, volunteers and informal advisors. We do have a youtube page (Education to Empower on Youtube), but we should be promoting it more.
We have this on the facebook cause, but you are right we should carry it through to the website itself.
We don’t give money to any third parties. We will make our finances transparent, but I’m not certain how we ought to be doing that (I’ll have to check other nonprofits and see how they approach it).
Yes! That is part of the plan, we are evaluating different blogging platforms, and what cms’s they might play nice with.
Hmmmm. Which do you recommend? Delicious or google reader?
Thanks!
Dan
August 19, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Pros of having two Twitter pages are:
- Better SEO
- Each is reserved for its own content
- Use one to promote personal thought, the other for company stuff
Cons of having two Twitter pages are:
- Two accounts to manage (download Tweetie)
You should be promoting those videos on your home page and cross linking from YouTube to EtE and back to YouTube.
I would recommend Google Reader as it pulls in the stuff you want to share back out. It’s social model is a bit busted, but by leveraging the API, you can pull stuff onto your site and in turn push back out to Twitter and Facebook. Delicious is a better social model, but you have to go get your information, then bookmark it.
To be ahead of the curve, you really need to be posting in multiple places. If you post on your site, it should be pushing everywhere else and vice versa on other platforms back to your site.
periodicdesign
August 19, 2009 at 4:25 pm