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As a professional developer who works extensively with teachers, I see a
real digital divide, especially in K-8 teachers, but even in high school.
Every essential communication I send out goes out in both paper and digital
versions.  Optional stuff is digital only.  If you have a database, you can
have an opt-out-of-paper option and let the digital natives self-designate.
If you are relying on a broadcast method, however, I would go with both
forms for a while longer.

Dave Smith

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 8:51 AM, Dante Centuori <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
> institutions.
>
> *****************************************************************************
>
> It is that time of year again-when institutions like ours are getting their
> big Field Trip guides off to the printers!  Thinking ahead, I was wanting to
> get an idea of how other places are starting to "go digital" with their
> school audience.  Here, we have found that our general public and family
> audiences are more responsive (camps registrations are almost all online,
> e-blasts and e-newsletters have high click-through rates, etc.) and we have
> cut back somewhat our reliance on print-brochures for those audiences.
>
> But for schools, rather than a shift, there seems to be a split
> community-there is a cluster of teachers and schools that are shifting
> electronically and another peak that still needs and wants brochures.  We
> don't want to lose audiences by "forcing them" to use e-mail and the
> internet.  Of course, eventually everyone will have to shift, but I see a
> few years ahead of us where there is still this grey zone of a split user
> habit in the school systems.   Yet I don't want to essentially double our
> efforts during this time.
>
> Are other regions seeing something like this?  Have you pushed more
> electronically on your schools audience?  I don't think the physical
> brochure will go away; we're just trying to figure out the balance.  With so
> many digital options and web pages getting more robust, the days of
> blanketing your region with a gazillion brochures to see what sticks are
> over (certainly with almost annual postage hikes!).
>
> Consider this a call to share best practices in field trip brochure
> distribution.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dante
>
>
> Dante Centuori
> Director of Creative Productions
> Great Lakes Science Center
> 601 Erieside Ave.
> Cleveland, OH  44114
> 216.696.2098 P
> 216.696.3472 F
> www.GreatScience.com<http://www.greatscience.com/>
>
>
>
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-- 
David L. Smith
Da Vinci Science Center
Allentown, PA
http://www.davinci-center.org

Please consider the environment before printing this email.

"You can’t buy change. It’s a process, not a purchase. The right shopping
list won’t change education.”
     -Sylvia Martinez http://blog.genyes.com/

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For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org.

Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at www.exhibitfiles.org.

The ISEN-ASTC-L email list is powered by LISTSERVR software from L-Soft. To learn more, visit
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