COSEE-OS regularly runs workshops pairing educators and scientists, teaching them how to use concept mapping to communicate complex ideas in science to their audiences. As part of this process, the scientists and educators are matched into teams based on their understanding of several content areas. The matching process has developed over time to become a quantitative and repeatable process that has been responsible for the creation of successful scientist/educator teams.
Though most of that process is not usually shared with workshop participants, the COSEE team thought it might be information that could be shared with the teachers. To give them a bit better of an idea as to our rationale and invite them to better get to know our process, we thought of ways to convey that information in a new way. Instead of writing many emails or posting static content to our webpage, we looked to a blog as a potential tool for giving our workshop a voice.
Carla Companion, with her experience as a blogger and on the Excellence in Networking Tools sub-group (ENTS), decided to choose this format for the benefit of workshop participants. The Workshop blog is coded manually into the online pages that COSEE-OS creates for its workshops. Starting with the University of Connecticut workshop, Carla began to post content for the applicants and participants to see. The tone of the blog is fundamentally different than the content on the rest of the COSEE-OS website, and is more direct, informal and conversational in tone.
The blog address was distributed in communications from COSEE-OS. The content initially included logistics information – such as hotels, directions and other needs – but grew to include answers to questions from participants, and overviews of evaluation data after the workshop had concluded. During the workshop itself, many participants said that they liked to read the blog, and they also loved having all of the information in one place, and knowing that it was being updated. They also requested that we post about news from their colleagues after the workshop as well, a suggestion that we plan to incorporate in the blog.
Something that we had learned at Ocean Systems from previous workshops was that it is all too common of an occurrence for teachers to attend a workshop and then never hear from the workshop facilitators again – leaving them with a positive experience that does not last. The blog is one of the tools that we hope will bring educators back to the site – and ultimately help them to continue to have a relationship with COSEE long after they have left their workshop.
