Blog It

February 2010

Members of the NRICH team are beginning to write blogs and this very short article is designed to put the reasoning behind this move in context.

NRICH is known to an enormous number of teachers in the UK and internationally. As we reflect on our success, a question we are beginning to think about is not "Who knows about NRICH?" but "Who uses NRICH?". The former question is very important as we need to find ways to reach the parts NRICH has not managed to reach before. But, alongside this, we also need to begin to focus on "Getting teachers through the door", as one of my colleagues on the team recently said. That is, engaging teachers who know about NRICH but who do not make the most of what it has to offer.

We are doing lots on the site to help teachers who know about us get started with our resources in their classrooms, this includes the production of the mapping documents and teachers' notes. We also know there is more we can do. One of our ideas is to include the use of videos to support teacher notes (teachers often ask for examples of problems being introduced or learners working on tasks) and we are seeking funding to make this happen. We are also thinking about feedback and improved communication approaches.

Two new aspects of our communications development are the use of Twitter and Blogs. The adoption of these technologies has the potential to help us make contact with new audiences as well as share our ideas with existing NRICHers.

By using Twitter regularly, our followers can get a flavour for what the team does and we can send out ideas and get rapid feedback on our thinking. Tweeters who do not know about NRICH may stumble upon us and start to make use of what we have to offer, sharing what they find out with their own networks. Blogs enable us to talk about, and get feedback on, issues that interest us as individual members of the team. Some of the NRICH team already have twitter sites and blogs set up. As we get going we are adding links to our personal details on the Meet the Team page. For now though I will mention: