[cma-l] Communities Take Flight

[Thompson, Steve]

Hi All,
 
It's been related to me that in our new project I am to  focus less on
communities and more on schools and much has happened in the week or so
since I learned this. Because of this change in remit the community
server that TVCM sits on will no longer be supported. With the Community
Server shutting down I've encouraged community groups to take up small
and inexpensive web hosting accounts. Many have done so and more are in
the process. I've managed to wangle a way of earning affiliate
commission each time a new account is created so when the emerging
community network is formed there will be funds in the pot. As each
group takes flight I'm adding it's members to an elist which I'll
trigger once they're all live. This will be a most sustainable community
network and nobody will be able to throw the switch. What then? - well
I've got plans www.tvcm.co.uk/docs/gdv5.pdf
 
And what of the Schools approach. Well I've made some progress and I've
had enthusiastic responses. Thankfully all the schools I've talked to
are most intersted in a project based approach rather than bog standard
teacher training. Hopefully I'll get to deliver the former. All of the
schools have expressed a desire for assitance in meeting their community
remit. Therefore the model for my work would look like this:
 
the former model was
 
COMMUNITY ---> CHILDREN ---> TEACHERS
 
which would become
 
TEACHER ---> CHILDREN ---> COMMUNITY (PARENTS)
 
To be honest I've been particularly targeting schools that have children
living in the communities that I have supported :-)
 
And what of the communities - well you can follow the migration here
www.tvcm.co.uk
 
To continue supporting them from afar I've started to dump everything I
know to a blog www.digiskills.co.uk - a pretty messy brain dump right
now but I'll tidy it up and add to it over time.
 
Steve Thompson
Community Media Coordinator
Institute of Digital Innovation
University Of Teesside
T-   01642 384567
M-  07795 826953
E-  s.d.thompson at tees.ac.uk