Communications
Science Teachers’ Association of New South Wales Inc.
Providing leadership and promoting excellence in science education
Visnja Aw
Ning, Facebook and Twitter
In 2017 we began to phase out the now dated Ning app, as we found that too many school email domains could not access the Ning site. We decided to adopt Yammer, a similar networking platform( already used by many schools) that seems to be more compatible with school emails. We use Yammer to share material and presentations from our events with conference delegates.
Interaction and engagement on our social media pages continues to grow steadily. There are 1.9k total page‘ Likes’ on STANSW Facebook. Olivia Belshaw, STANSW Councillor has competently managed the STANSW Facebook account, along with STANSW staff Visnja Aw and Shay Deen. The STANSW Twitter account now has just over 1,400 followers, an increase of over 500 followers in the last year. We encourage conference delegates to share their experiences on Twitter during STANSW events. We also promote corporate sponsors and partners on our social media pages. Often paid advertising by our regular supporters is complemented with free posts on social media.
STANSW Electronic HTML Quarterly Newsletter E-News
E-News is sent quarterly, one per term. E-News is largely used to advertise STANSW projects and the projects of our regular supporters. It allows us to communicate directly with teachers beyond our membership base. E-News is sent to individual members, and to all staff of school memberships. Non-members make up almost half of our subscribers, totalling approximately 2000 recipients. E-News includes paid advertising by corporate members and commercial vendors, but also complimentary advertisements, negotiated through in-kind arrangements. E-News continues to be the most popular option for advertisers, and is usually complemented with website advertising which links from the html email to the web landing page. E-News is sent out via MailChimp on a monthly subscription account.
STANSW Science Matters Quarterly Printed Newsletter
Science Matters continues to be sent to all Schools across NSW and is a free publication. It is an 8 page A4 full colour glossy brochure, with a 2 page calendar of science dates and STANSW events. Letter from the Editor or President appears on the front cover, and the internal pages are predominantly made up of advertising, with usually one abridged article taken from the SEN Members’ Journal. The advertising includes all STANSW projects( budget allowed) and paid advertising from various sponsors, commercial vendors and supporters. For eg: Success One( Pascal Press), HSC Study Lab, CrookED Science, RACI, ANSTO, are regular advertisers.
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