Do You Yahoo?
Dateline: 1/3/02
by Ann Zeise
I hear this question more often among groups these days. Just
about any group asks its members if they are willing to be part
of a Yahoo Group to help improve communications among members.
So why Yahoo?
Yahoo is easy for any member of your support group or family
who is even vaguely internet sauvy to set up what amounts to
a full "community"-type website... and best of all
it is free!
Often I suggest to geograpically spread out families to set
up their own Yahoo Group. Yahoo Groups' features can be used
by the absent relative to participate more fully in the homeschooling
process.
To begin, join Yahoo Groups globally to get all the features,
to start a new group, and to make it easier to manage your email
lists. Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/
and look for the Sign In section -- "New Users click here
to register." Fill in the requested information. Uncheck
the box in the bottom section that says: "Contact me occasionally
about special offers..." to avoid ads in the email.
To start a a site for your group or family, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/start
.
Select a short group name. You can get more lengthy and detailed
in the description in the third box. Chose a short and simple
email address for the group. I can't stress how important very
simple, precise names are on the web.
You then get some choices on just how public you want your
group to be. If you want the list to be very private, don't list
it. A "public" list can still be moderated so that
you can let the public see some parts but not all parts of your
site. Be a public list if you want to attract new folks to your
group. An "Open" membership means that anyone can just
sign up for your list. You can have a "moderated open"
list, so that anyone can join, but the moderator can always read
each new member's first post before it goes out. If a person
sends 'spam' the rest of the group never sees it. For my own
town support group list, though, I want to make sure that all
list members are homeschoolers in my general area, who are either
involved in my group or are seriously considering joining. I
don't want "lurkers" seeing our calendar and other
private information. Chose "closed" or "restricted,"
depending on your circumstances and the wishes of your support
group. For a family group you probably want to be unlisted and
closed.
Now for the fun stuff. Go into the settings and decide what
you want to allow your members or the general public to be able
to do on your site. You can also have a lot of fun customizing
your site from the setup page: add a longer welcome message,
add a graphic or logo, change the default colors, and add special
messages to new or unsubscribing members. Invite your friends
and family to join the group. Send announcements of the website
to such major homeschool websites as HEM
and A to Z
Home's Cool to help spread the word of its availability.
Yahoo Groups has some useful tools when reading messages on
the website. While in the "Messages" section you can
reorder the messages by the "thread" - or topic of
the email, and then "expand the messages" so you can
read them like one long page. You can also search the archived
messages for specific keywords. The calendar offers the option
to remind list members twice about an event. The photos and bookmarks
can be arranged into folders with titles of your choice. Use
databases for an address list, one for a "lost and found,"
and another for advertising "educational stuff" that
members want to buy or sell.
I hope you can see that Yahoo Groups can provide the sort
of online community "website" that many homeschool
groups and families want, with parts public and parts private,
in order to facilitate communication within the group.
A to Z Home's Cool Mail List
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/A2Zhomeschool
Home Education Magazine Networking
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HEM-Networking
Published in Home
Education Magazine, January-February, 2002
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