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NEA Constituent Relations uses blogging, videocasting and social networks to manage the following work:

• Knowledge Management
  Led by NEA ALE, CR hosts 2 sets of blogs designed to manage (1) NEA UniServ Academy and (2) Western Regional Organizational Effectiveness training program. Both training events use blogging in an effort to move beyond traditional "one-shot" training practices where participants carry home their handouts in a bag or briefcase. Blogging lets participants revisit training curriculum anytime, anywhere and makes use of "syndication” enabling participants to remain both up-to-date and automatically notified whenever a change or new content is added to the training blog.

  [http://www.donblake.com/udacademy]
  [http://www.donblake.com/wroe]
  



• Organizing
  Led by passionate efforts on behalf of NEA Student Chairperson Anthony Daniels, NEA organizes groups of member and nonmember college students to take action against the skyrocketing cost of paying back college loan debt. Anthony Daniels has promoted his use and the use by others of social networking, blogging and videocasting to an audience of over 2500 social-network-based college students from across the United States.

  [http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2215127719]
  [http://www.myspace.com/collegeaffordability]
  [http://www.youtube.cmo/collegeaffordability]
  [http://www.collegeaffordabilityconcernsme.org]

Though Web statistics never paint a complete picture in terms of return on investment with regard to time spent managing these multiple mediums, they do tell us whether anyone is “listening” and how often. So, in relationship to the above mentioned social media uses, what do the numbers say about who looks at what?

By David Murray
dmurrayil@earthlink.net

[Ragan News online]

How a camera crew’s downtime and a brainstorm led to a YouTube initiative that helped the IRS solve a big communication problem

The Journal
by Dave Nagel
[online@http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22549]

Non-profit TeachersFirst has partnered with Web technology provider TRintuition to launch the Building Learners Project, a service that allows educators to develop online collaborative learning projects using Web 2.0 technologies.

The partnership brings TRintuition's the workBench to TeachersFirst members. The workBench is an online authoring tool focused on education and designed for producing ePortfolios, student projects, and presentations. It also provides online communities for classes, teacher support groups, online training, and other activities.

As part of the partnership launch, 100 TeachersFirst members will be able to use the premium-level features of the workBench at no charge. Membership is free. Those wishing to participate can fill out an online application at the TeachersFirst site. A free, feature-limited version is also available for those who are not among the first 100 to sign up.

A membership application for TeachersFirst is available here. Further information about the Building Learners Project is available here.

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

In an age when schools are on alert for campus shooters, school officials nationwide say they're battling a new phenomenon: threats of violence that trigger a flurry of text messaging and drive up absenteeism among frightened students.

Change.org is a social network specifially designed to manage and focus the latest Net-based tools for use by individuals who are dedicated to bring about change accross a variety of issues.

The NEA Student program will manage a "change" titled "Youth Agenda" which is co-managed by a coalition of members working with Anthony Daniels, NEA Student Chairperson. Youth Agenda's mission as authored by coalition members is to:

Promote social awareness and responsibility to create positive holistic change in society by ensuring that every American has an opportunity to receive a quality education, access to affordable health care, a clean environment and a fair criminal justice system.

Anthony's intent by way of this coalition is to leverage existing national youth groups to support and promote NEA Student Program's political action agenda --College Affordability, NCLB, etc.

Anthony believes that this coalition will expand awareness of NEA's College Affordability Campaign by educating its members about the finer points related to current and pending changes to the College Opportunity and Affordability Act.

Check out Youth Agenda at:

http://www.change.org/changes/view/2384

By Ben Arnoldy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Half of courses in Grades 9 to 12 will be delivered online by 2019, predicts a new report.

Meridian, Idaho - Rather than send her kids off on the yellow bus, Briana LeClaire has school come to her home. Her kids attend a virtual public school, connecting online to teachers and coursework. Everything from books to microscopes to radish seeds arrives via brown trucks.

edweek.org; Teacher Magazine

Teacher-in-training Stacy Snyder brought suit against Millersville University, alleging that she was denied her teaching credential because of a picture of herself as a “drunken pirate” on her MySpace page. Snyder is claiming her First Amendment rights were violated, according to ABC News.

Citing unsatisfactory performance and unprofessional behavior, university officials said they would have denied Snyder a degree regardless of the photo. The photo, which officials say promoted underage drinking, was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Snyder’s suit, which is scheduled to go to trial on Tuesday, raises questions about teachers’ accountability to students—inside and outside the classroom. Some school districts have begun crafting policies to regulate the virtual lives of their employees, ABC News reports. “Teachers are also considered role models,” said Nora Carr, a spokeswoman for a North Carolina school district that is at work on such a policy.

The risk of having online profiles has prompted teachers associations and school district lawyers to caution teachers about what they put online. The Washington Post recently reported on a wave of teacher profiles featuring content that could be deemed inappropriate by administrators and parents, including strong sexual content, profanity, and discriminatory language.

CNN among the thousands of news agencies building their brand in the latest social networking environment--Second Life.

Are you a citizen of the virtual word of Second Life? Share your stories and experiences by uploading them here, or join us at the iReport hub in Second Life where you can get all the tools you need to be an SL iReporter.

http://www.ireport.com/ir-topic-stories.jspa?topicId=1307

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users.

Digg is democratizing digital media. As a user, you participate in determining all site content by discovering, selecting, sharing, and discussing the news, videos, and podcasts that appeal to you.

I've added DIGG to the College Affordability blog so that individuals can simply click on the "DIGG" icon and share CAC content to a wider audience. Having DIGG on the CAC blog also allows me to automatically update other CAC social media platforms with recent CAC blog posts.

Check out the CAC Blog!

May 2008 – April 2008 shows 23% increase in visits to the Gateway over April 2007! This month, our 1,000,000th visitor to the Gateway!

Figures indicate that sometime in the month of May, the third week to be more precise, we will have the one millionth visit to the Gateway since reopening and the NEA became our sponsor less than two years ago!

A million visits is a milestone worth completing and signify the realization of a goal for which we at the Gateway are tremendously grateful.

As the 2008 presidential election looms, political activist Connery strives to dispel the myth that young voters are apathetic, describing the Millennial Generation (born 1978 to 1996) as optimistic, civic-minded team players. He says the “new infrastructure for young progressives” features culturally diverse outreach, new technologies, peer-to-peer networking and a penchant for social justice.

John Wilson submitted to Diny Golder, Executive Director of JES& Co.and the Gateway to 21st Century Materials (GEM) Monday a letter outlining support of a proposal by JES&Co. to The National Science Foundation that will help bring NSF funded Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) resources to all of our public school teachers across the U.S.

[see LOS]