Hello everyone,
As you reflect on your New Year’s resolutions, I’d like to encourage you to think about becoming involved in AzTEA. As an all-volunteer organization, we have a variety of opportunities to involve you in our activities. This includes not only our conferences but also our other professional development activities and services. I am writing you today with two opportunities to do just that.
First, the Board has the following committees that help guide our activities. Each of these committees is looking for two to three volunteers to serve on the committee. Meetings are held by phone at a time that is convenient for the members and business is conducted via e-mail and using AzTEA’s web services such as our wikis (not familiar with Wikis – don’t worry, we’ll help).
Advocacy – Responsible for educating legislators and the public at the local, state, and federal levels on the need to support technology-facilitated learning
Communications – Responsible for developing and maintaining the organization’s print and electronic communications (Newsletter, web page, blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc.)
Finance – Responsible for the financial health of the organization.
Member Services – Responsible for developing new services, maintaining current services, and coordinating AzTEA’s conferences and workshops
If you have ideas about ways we can improve our communication, conferences and member services, we need these ideas and would love to have you join one of our committees because we value your input. You don’t need extensive experience to participate in one of these committees, we just need your ability to answer questions like “Are there services or ways of delivering technology professional development that you would like to see AzTEA offer or improve?”
Second, one of the services we have recently added is our new web-based membership database and conference registration system. The software behind this system is an open source package called DRUPAL. DRUPAL allows for the development of a number of sophisticated services. However, we need additional programming help to develop the system. If you know DRUPAL or have a little bit of programming experience and are interested in learning, we would like to have you join our lead programmer in developing this exciting new service.
I encourage you to become actively involved in one of the opportunities above. This is your organization and we want your input to improve it.
If you are interested in any of these opportunities or have questions, please contact me at president@aztea.org.
Chris