Comments on: How Yahoo! Contributor Academy Built Free Educational Courses

By: Don’t Panic, Fellow Community Manager!

Don’t Panic, Fellow Community Manager! — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 10:01:03 +0000

[...] How Yahoo! Contributor Academy Built Free Educational Courses (spinsucks.com) [...]

By: jelenawoehr

jelenawoehr — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 20:45:00 +0000

@susansilver I love that topic! I might actually do something on that for our corporate blog, if you don’t mind my borrowing the idea. I had someone submit content this morning with a grievous spelling error in the title. She’s one of our best and most thorough writers. It happens to the best of us!

Thanks for the compliments on Yahoo!’s various guides. I’m admittedly a “bleeds purple” person, so I’m hardly the most objective judge, but some of the Yahoos I’ve met are among the most expert and skillful Web writers in the industry.

By: jelenawoehr

jelenawoehr — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 20:40:41 +0000

@ShakirahDawud Thank you! It’s a reference to an excellent graphic that was produced for the “Punctuate Proficiently” course. I’m sure you’d find it amusing. (It, in turn, was based on an unfortunate real-life headline about Rachel Ray, IIRC.)

By: ShakirahDawud

ShakirahDawud — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 16:48:24 +0000

Love your bio, Jelena. Your family and pets are probably a lot happier after Punctuate Proficiently, lol! Your work sound very exciting, and as @susansilver says, it’s nice to hear from the people behind these online courses.

By: susansilver

susansilver — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 16:18:18 +0000

It is interesting to hear the perspective about the minds behind the courses. I have seen Yahoo’s development guide and it is one of the best out there. Actually, a lot of the Yahoo guides are top-notch for learning and has to have been through the hard work of people like you Jelena!

I just had an embarrassing typo in the first word of a post about copywritng. It is beginning to sound like why even the best writers still have grammatical errors is a great post topic.

By: barrettrossie

barrettrossie — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 02:52:04 +0000

Maybe they should brush up by teaching an academy course!

By: ginidietrich

ginidietrich — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 18:41:45 +0000

@jelenawoehr I totally would do that!

By: jelenawoehr

jelenawoehr — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:42:21 +0000

@ginidietrich I’m totally envisioning you in a gown telling the limo driver “DRIVE, I’m late to the Twitters!”

By: jelenawoehr

jelenawoehr — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:40:32 +0000

@barrettrossie Absolutely! My high school had a poster with the proverb, “Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand,” but they’d added, “Let me teach and I will know.”

We’ve even encouraged our editors to brush up by taking the Academy courses. Everyone needs a (literal) refresher course now and then.

By: barrettrossie

barrettrossie — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:28:12 +0000

What a cool project – and long needed. “Burn your Ph.D” — really important to remember in all kinds of situations. You can’t expect people to know or understand, you’ve got to build a case and understanding will follow.

Did you find that teaching this stuff gave you a deeper understanding of the material?