Day 1 – was "A Good Start" but Day 2 was down to business....
Today I met with Dr. Suzanne Mitchell of the STEM Coalition
under the AR Department of Higher Education (ADHE). I just have to say that she is a joy to talk
to but definitely a busy lady with tons of projects under her belt. Today she was talking to me about her
background as she is a mathematics professor at ASU part time (adjunct
faculty/non-tenure) and then part time as the Executive Director of the
Arkansas STEM Coalition. She has driven
back and forth every Monday during the school year (except summers) to ASU to
teach and then also serves on the Governor’s Computer Science in Education
committee.
Today, we reviewed issues involving her coalition’s website
(www.arkansasstemcoalition.com)
and the redesigning of promotional items for STEM to be comparable to other
states. Dr. Mitchell also expressed a
need for a FACTS sheet, an eNewsletter, data mining, finding a way to solicit
membership, mailouts through Mail Chimp, and help with updating the strategic
plan.
Today was mostly spent getting to know each other and
exchanging backgrounds. I did tell her
that my plans are to continue a partnership with the AR Stem Coalition after
the STRIVE program is complete in order to get my students more STEM involved
and to be more engaged in project/inquiry-based learning.
Day 3 - Caught in a Web of STEM
I have a feeling that Dr. Mitchell will benefit my at risk/lower income students and I can help her with the needs of the coalition. I have already got her website registered
into many search engines today and will talk to her (and even offered to talk
to the board if needed) about some suggestions from a technology professional
point of view. I have so many ideas
like:
1 Why do they not use www.arkansasstemcoalition.org
instead of the .com address as this is a 501-3c non-profit organization funded
through an NSF grant from the NCLB initiative.
Why do they let Power Technologies update their
webpage (which is WordPress based) instead of having a content management
system where someone can update daily.
The website for STEM is in quite a disarray and the needs of
getting it organized like other popular STEM states (Texas, Missouri, etc.)
will take further research to see where the keywords, metatags, and other
search engine optimization and user-friendly navigation will be implemented and
executed for this site. I’m so excited
and absolutely love this opportunity has been given to me!
Other ideas:
-
Partnerships and links to those partnerships on
the website to build SEO
-
Correct the MailChimp sign up form on the
website and include Google Analytics into the website for further data mining
techniques.
