This calendar year marked the beginning of the weekly feature publication on MIDTESOL’s website, midtesol.org. The publication was started in response to feedback on a recent MIDTESOL membership survey, which indicated a need for more value-added content in our communication with members. In particular, members asked for content focused on pedagogy that mirrored their top reason for becoming a part of our affiliate: professional development opportunities. With an established website and support from the entire board, we felt confident and excited about providing this new publication for our members.

Because our affiliate covers the four-state Midwestern region of Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas, and we have five separate interest sections (community college/adult education, educational technology, higher education/teacher training, intensive English programs, and K–12), there are a variety of interests and professional development needs among our members. The weekly feature articles are one way to highlight the diversity of our membership while varying the topics to meet members’ needs via a publication more frequent than our quarterly newsletter.

Content

We began soliciting content for the weekly feature articles from Interest Section Chairs and state Members-at-Large who could better speak to the concerns of the groups they represent. Hot-topic issues, member profiles, teaching tools or tips, and reviews of technology applications were possibilities suggested for weekly feature articles. A quick glance at the topics of the articles published this year shows the success achieved in expanding the content provided for our members. Technology topics and teaching tips make up about half of the posts, yet they are written by members from each of our four states, representing people who work in K–12, higher education, adult education, and even university students who served as guest contributors. Each of our five interest sections has had at least one article specific to its interests. Articles have also included more general topics such as TESOL’s annual convention, book reviews, and resources for implementing Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in the classroom.

From a publicity standpoint, the weekly feature has helped to increase traffic to our website with an average of over 40 views per article. We have used our Twitter account to announce each week’s publication, which has led to increased social media interactions with groups like MinneTESOL Journal who often favorite our weekly feature tweets and some of the EdTech applications that our authors have written about (e.g., IStation). Another benefit has been increased participation in creating content from our members. In addition to board members, we have had guest posts from a handful of other contributors and hope to have additional authors from within our MIDTESOL membership in the coming months. One of our Board members has encouraged graduate students in her program to submit articles. This has led to the win-win situation of MIDTESOL having new content to post while the graduate students gain experience with the publication process.

Future directions

As a relatively new initiative, MIDTESOL will continue to increase awareness about our weekly feature articles by cross-posting on social media sites such as our Facebook and LinkedIn sites, as well as sharing them through more traditional means, such as our newsletter. We hope articles will continue to address diverse topics and the interests of our membership, allow more involvement as a growing number of members submit articles, and provide valuable content to extend the professional development of English language teachers in our region and beyond. To that end, we must continue to determine which topics will be useful, encourage our members to write articles, and maintain a standard of quality and relevance in the articles we publish. Our communications committee will continue to look for ways to publicize and enhance the appeal and usability of our website as the distribution platform for the articles. Ultimately, our goal is for the weekly feature articles to further MIDTESOL’s mission, “to strengthen the effective teaching of English in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska to people whose native language is a language other than English while respecting their individual language rights... through the dissemination and exchange of information and resources.”

Shaeley Santiago is an ESL Instructional Coach for the Ames Community School District in Ames, Iowa, USA. She is an avid user of technology for professional development and is active on Twitter (@HSeslteacher). She has been privileged to serve on the Mid-America TESOL (MIDTESOL) board since 2010 and is currently Director of Communications for MIDTESOL.