Stepping Up:Conference Call - October 2 2008
From Stepping Up
Contents |
Attendance
- Mubdi
- Nadia (Secretary)
- Reni
- Eden
- Nikhita
- Arif
Regrets
- Lia
- Kartik
- Kari
- Aaron
Review of Stepping Up 07-08
Activities through the year
toronto+montreal focus groups wiki collaboration is good: anyone can write/edit and discuss challenges: making it accessible to everyone across the country need to have it translated into french so that everyone can work on it originally was supposed to be translated by CDLS, but ended up being too long and that didn't fit their budget, now ysf and cdls will share bill and will be translated by january
- why can't get sci fair alumns to translate: we want a consistent translation, and most alumns are anglophones - eventually they'll be able to work on it in french translation has been one of the biggest drawbacks
- we have lots of hits and are making an impact on the internet =) as well as other google
- searches (people not only looking for science fair, but just general research tools)
- not done: paper teaser sent to regional science fairs, due to funding
Canada-Wide Science Fair & Summer
- but teaser was done at cwsf, 'top 10 things not to do while being judged' put on every participant's table at science fair
- lots of pictures and stuff to make guide livelier
- content generation
- virtual judge: flash app with real judging questions and such, with video-taped commentary on the questions and good ways to approach the questions (options to turn commentary on/off)
- this is where we are now decide what we want to do moving forward
Goals in moving forward
- what are our goals for the coming year, what do we want to focus on (since we can't do everything!)
- pod casts on judging etc, make it engaging (past experiences etc)
- promotional videos, other video content
- mockumentary (tlc's what not to wear) - what not to put on your science fair board
- promo materials for presentations, much like smarts and vector, collaborate with smarts for advertisements
- pre-made presentations on stepping up or stepping up sections (i.e. judging, stats, etc) so that anyone can take the presentation and show it and stuff
- we want to distinguish ourselves from smarts
- peer network of helping etc - more in smarts' mandate
- follow life of scifair student
- content improvement - some sections might have things missing or need improvement, need to
- flag articles that we want to improve (i.e. stats) - what should be there but isn't, what could be done better. I.E. switch sections and read what you haven't yet and evaluate it
- there's nothing on ysf that has alumni info - might serve as motivation for students to say, alumni aren't only in research but also do other important things (i.e. where are they now?)
- incorporating lots of multimedia content and such
- support materials (i.e. presentations: making it easier for teachers to involve students in the classrooms, make it easier
- accessible by students
- make map to guide, not too many words (this is what it does, etc) - flowchart kind of thing
- life of a scifair student, put together with alumni stuff
- will need to sort out ideas and decide what specifically we want to do
Focus Groups
- Calgary nov 1
- Halifax nov 29
- both ran by mubdi, will need moderators to help
- will gather kids email all sci fair alumni since 02 (i think)
- cwsf or iisef alumni
- in halifax, the regional organization will be helping us with running it and getting students
- before focus group everyone should go through guide and decide what needs improvements
- expected turnout maybe 20-30 people
- will get some of these people to further work on the guide
- josh also wanted review of smarts guide and orienting it towards what in needs to get people interested in science fair - since these things overlap at getting people interested in science fair, it makes sense to do both things at the focus groups
Work Session
- Toronto oct 25
- Montreal nov 22
- doing things we can't do online, like videos and such with social event afterwards
- at conference calls before the days, we can work on what we want to do and prepare (i.e. write script, choose locations)
- need a couple more conference calls between now and oct 25
- send out email tomorrow with what we talked about today, deciding what we want to do and get moving on it!
Other Business
- can have 'stepping up ambasadors' to give presentation to local cwsf team before the national fair and introduce them to the entire thing and how to use it
- do this so that they know the callibre expected at nationals since it's the first time some of these would be going there
- more personal touch if alumni goes and speaks to the team and answer questions
- i.e. invite people from the area and give presentation to them
- can put this into canada wide booklet if we do it early enough, have it in the registration booklet
- have virtual conference for people not in the area
- another conference call sometime next week and go from there
