Blog
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First Trip Date: May ‘09
Exciting news. I can today announce that the first trip to Zambia will be this May!
I recently spoke with Vanessa Parker who founded the Tongabezi Trust School near Livingstone. She was kind enough to share the official holidays for schools across Zambia, which are as as follows:
Term 1: 10 April to 10 May 2009
Term 2: 07 August to 06 September 2009
Term 3: 4 December 2009 to 10 January 2010.So we are are going schedule the trip from 11 May onwards, as soon as term 1 holidays are over. More to follow as we have it.
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TweetAsOne: Join the conversation on twitter
On 13th January I set up a twitter account for LearnAsOne. The main plan was (and to an extent still is) to ‘tweet’ live updates from the trip to Zambia.
More of that in a second but first of all let me explain what twitter is to those of you who are new to it. I’ll do so by paraphrasing an excellent article by Guardian technology writer Charles Arthur.
Twitter is a real time micro-blogging platform. In plain English this means that you can send a 140-character message, or ‘tweet’ to a website which anyone can read. You can choose to follow as many people as you like and you receive their updates as a stream of text on your computer screen or mobile phone.
If you want to find out more then Tony Hsieh’s Beginners Quick Start Guide and Tutorial to using Twitter should prove a useful read.
Why is LearnAsOne using twitter?
Good question. The easiest way to answer this question is through a couple of examples.
The initial reason why we signed up to twitter was so we can provide real-time updates when we are in Zambia. With fuller blog updates to follow when time allows. I believe there is even an option to text twitter updates from a mobile phone, which will prove very useful should we be unable to connect to the Internet in more remote regions. So by using twitter we can keep you bang up to date with what’s going on.
Another great aspect of twitter is that it opens up the possibility of interaction and conversation. You can send us questions or suggestions and we can respond.
One idea we are very keen to try is to ask you to send questions (as tweets) before we interview the chief of the community we decide to work with. We’ll pick the best and put them to the chief. And then upload the answers onto YouTube for you to watch.
But it’s not only during trips when we plan to use twitter. We’ve been experimenting with it over the past two weeks and numerous uses have already cropped up.
It’s proving to be a quick and efficient way to share what’s going on behind the scenes at LearnAsOne. It has allowed us to connect with a whole host of people we’d otherwise never (or very rarely talk to) - supporters, volunteers, journalists, celebrities, web developers, people who live in Zambia etc. etc.
There is also a phenomenon called re-tweeting (RT) which is where people forward on other people’s tweets to their followers. Meaning thousands of people can see a message in a matter of minutes. Hopefully this will prove to be an effective and low cost way to spread the message about LearnAsOne.
What else to expect from LearnAsOne on twitter
As I mentioned we are very new to twitter and still experimenting with the best ways to use it. I’ve been asking the twitter community for advice and doing a lot of reading on how other organisations are using it, with the aim of setting some initial expectations for our twitter behaviour. This is bound to evolve, but hopefully it’ll give you an idea of what to expect if you decide to follow us.
1) Twitter is about conversations and you can’t talk to an organisation
Thanks to Dave Fleet (or @davefleet in twitter speak) for this tip. This means that @LearnAsOne will actually be written from my perspective. Me being Steve, the founder of LearnAsOne. I’ll try to keep things on topic (LearnAsOne, Zambia, education, social media, volunteering, fundraising etc.) but things may occasionally stray into my personal life (mostly references to sport I imagine). If I get the balance wrong then please message me and let me know.2) I’ll do my best to help others even if it’s not LAO related
LearnAsOne only exists because of volunteers and people who are kind enough to donate their hard earned money. This site is built by volunteers, our research into Zambia is heavily assisted by volunteers, much of our fundraising is done volunteers. Most of these relationships have been started through the Internet or through friends of friends and if I can repay that in a small way by helping others then I will do so.3) Please don’t be offended if I don’t reply
LearnAsOne only has one permanent member of staff, me. Everyone else is a volunteer. So while I love to read your tweets, @replies and DMs I will often be engaged with other areas of LearnAsOne’s work and miss things. If I fail to respond to something important then please don’t be offended and send me an email to hello at learnasone org. That way it will definitely get read. Thanks.I think that’s about it. This is very much the beginning of the LAO twitter journey so we’ll start with small steps and see how things evolve. It would be great to have you as a follower.
@LearnAsOne (aka Steve)