[Sugar-devel] [GPA] communications and tomorrow

[Bill Bogstad]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 9:09 PM, Caroline Meeks
<caroline at solutiongrove.com> wrote:

>
> For the teachers, I am trying out Launchpad as our place to communicate
> between teachers and community. I don't want to over load them with either
> all of our discusisons, IAEP or Sugar Devel. Its my theory that they do not
> have time for tons of email and don't have the well practice email coping
> skills you and I have.
> But all theories. Open for discussion.

I agree with not overloading the teachers.  Unfiltered sugar-devel is
not something for which most (any?) teachers are likely to have the
time let alone the interest.  On the other hand, letting them know
what is going on about things directly related to their school would
keep them in the loop..

 I have a bias against something like Launchpad for keeping people
generally informed of the 'state of the environment'.  It's great for
tracking things, but it's a pull rather then push tool.  You have to
more or less go there to find things out about what is going on.
Email just flows by and you can learn about what is going on when you
have the time and ignore/delete it when you don't.  Obviously if
traffic is too high people will just tune out entirely.  'Too high' is
different for everyone, but is going to be higher the more connected
the traffic is to something you are already actively involved in.
Discussing how to fix problems at GPA is going to be much more
interesting (if not completely understood) then random email.  I would
hope this would keep them more engaged.

BTW, I haven't used it myself; but I've heard good things about RT
(Request Tracker) software. http://bestpractical.com/rt/.  It
structures email so that you have the tracking ability of something
like Launchpad, but the informality of email.  Or at least that's my
impression from hearing about it from
various people.  Unfortunately, I don't know of any free hosting for RT.

> See you tomorrow?

I don't recall knowing anything about what's going on tomorrow.  In
any case, I'm not in the position
to be anywhere anyway.

Bill