SUSTAIN 2013 and wikiSLO
SUSTAIN SLO and wikiSLO are partnering up for the Winter and Spring quarters of 2013. The team is composed of Rory Aronson, Cody Hunt, and Corinne Madison The partnership is a collaboration for learning and developing the wiki in ways that the whole team agrees will be both beneficial and fun. This page provides a complete history of our work.
As part of the Sustain Program, we had to document our project in a number of different ways. Please feel free to check those out below!
Skip to a specific week of our 22 week partnership or read through from the start!
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
Thanks for reading!
- The SUSTAIN 2013 and wikiSLO team
Week 1
Hello prospective SUSTAIN students! This is Rory Aronson, the founder of wikiSLO. I'd like to take this time to introduce you to the wiki! This site is designed to become the premier resource for SLO residents to find information, connect with other people, write about the cool things they know about in SLO, etc. This is a place for anything and everything. Some examples: did you know about the surfing goat in Pismo? Want to go find some public fruit trees? Did you know SLO used to have a racetrack? Did you know about the giant tunnel under downtown? To get a feel for the wiki, please see the about page and also browse around, find something new, make a few edits if you feel like it, etc.
The direction of your potential involvement is completely up to you! Some ideas I had (please don't let this list limit us, I'm just throwing out ideas!):
- How might we engage local businesses in the wiki?
- How might we involve local government in the wiki?
- How might we involve incoming freshmen or the Cal Poly community as a whole in the wiki?
- How might we encourage and ensure that the wiki is a place for everyone and everything?
- How might we use the wiki to improve the quality of life of San Luis Obispo residents?
- What other ideas do you have? We can take this anywhere we want! Hint: press the "Edit" button up near the title of this page and add ideas to this list!
Thanks for checking it out! I think we will have an awesome time developing this project and learning together!
Cheers!
It looks like 2 students have chosen the wikiSLO project! Welcome Corinne Madison and Cody Hunt!
SUSTAIN Americorp partner Kylie Hensley.
SUSTAIN 2013 Community Partners.
Students getting ready to present the organizations.
Week 2
We had our first meeting at the Library in one of the collaboration rooms. We looked at the analytics and then brainstormed ideas about where we want to take wikISLO during our two quarters. We started by just throwing out a bunch of possibilities ranging from just writing content, to putting out fliers, to engaging local business, to writing grants. We decided to sit on the ideas until our second meeting but there was overall consensus that the wiki needs more content to become appealing as a resource. As a first step, Corinne will pitch using the wiki for all SUSTAIN project websites to her classmates and we will make some edits and add a few pages.
Corinne has confirmed that wikiSLO will be the primary place for all SUSTAIN project websites. The other students in SUSTAIN are all very excited about using the wiki. Corinne will send out an instructional email and within the week, every group should have a wiki page setup!
Corinne and Cody browsing the wiki.
Idea board trying to answer the question: How might we...?
Week 3
Hello Everyone! At this week's meeting we had a lot of brainstorming! Our brains were steaming afterwards! We threw out ideas of how to advertise and grow awareness of the wiki throughout SLO. Some ideas we had include: hosting a write-a-thon; establish goals to increase content, users, page visits, etc..; advertise using coffee sleeves, paper slips on keyboards, social media outlets; Cal Poly announcements; and press releases and/or news stories. Eventually, we hope to gather enough excitement throughout SLO that the SLO Tribune will write a story about us in the paper!
In the meantime, we are going to get the ball rolling with the Write-a-thon. Corinne is going to draft up an email to send to some local cafes and hopefully we will get a response back soon!
Week 4
We're still in the planning steps! We sent out emails to some local cafes for our Write-a-thon event, but no responses back yet. :( We continued to brainstorm ways to increase awareness of the wiki and exactly how to go that (i.e. preparation, planning, etc..). We decided that Cody and Corinne would have "homework" (in a sense) to create/edit/add to any pages on the Wiki. Of course the possibilities are endless of things they could do.
Week 5
We had a great meeting this week! We established our main goal - that's definitely going to challenge us! - and brainstormed different ways to accomplish it! Our goal is to increase the number of registered users to at least 200 (the wiki currently has 65). Some ideas we had were to to rope in the other Sustain students, advertise at the farmers market, host at least one Write-a-thon, and use other outlets of media and advertising.
Rory is going to be meeting with a local cafe to set up a time and place to host our Write-a-thon; Cody will be researching ways to advertise on the SLO Transit buses; and Corinne is going to talk with Sustain and also research ways to get a booth at Farmers Market.
To follow up on Cody and Corinne's "homework assignment" from last week - Cody created Goshi Japanese Restaurant and Cal Poly's Minna No Anime Club and Corinne created pages for Cal Poly's Western Bonanza and Firestone Grill.
Week 6
This week Corinne created a page for mission thrift and edited High Street Deli's page!
Week 7
Corinne was peaking around and saw Pages Needing Improvement. From there, she added onto Goshi Japanese Restaurant and also Avila Beach. The write-a-thon was held this weekend at Sally Loo's Wholesome Cafe! Many people showed up and helped out! There was even someone from KSBY there! Cody added articles about On-Campus Living, marking all the locations on the map.
Week 8
Can you believe it's Week 8 already?!?! Kind of terrifying. Especially when Rory reminded us of our goal to reach 200 user accounts by the end of the quarter. Yikes! This week was the first meeting as a whole again (Corinne has been M.I.A. for two weeks because of Western Bonanza). We reviewed and finalized our charter and talked about our game plan for achieving our 200 users.
After our meeting, Cody and Corinne met with the rest of the Sustain program. With the help of Sustain alumni, we brainstormed ideas for future events that the wiki can host. The event that won the most votes was a partnering with a local library and host a WikiSLO workshop. People could come in and learn how to navigate the site, how to create and account, make pages, and edit information. There's a picture below of us with our snazzy sign. :)
This week Corinne edited the College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Resources page and created a page for Dickey's BBQ!
With the help of a Sustain alumni, Cody and Corinne created an advertisement to host a future event.
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
This week we set some deadlines and goals. The first deadline is to get the farmer's market application sent in to the downtown association by Thursday, April 18. This will allow the downtown association the 3 weeks they require to approve the paperwork so that we can have our booth on Thursday May 9. In order to have a nice booth, we want a banner printed to attract people to the booth and to start giving the wiki a "brand name." For the banner, we emailed the graphic communications department seeking to find a student who would be interested in doing some brand development and logo design for the wiki. We are giving any interested GrC students a deadline of May 3 to complete the work.
Today we also emailed SLO Transit inquiring about details for advertising on the local buses.
Week 14
Week 15
Week 16
This week we went to Farmer's Market to talk to the farmers. We talked to most of them and made pages about them. We are preparing for next week, when we will have sheets to give them with wikiSLO's logo on it and our own booth telling people about the wiki.
Week 17
This week we went to Farmer's Market. WikiSLO had a booth where we told people about the wiki. Many people learned about the wiki, and one even made an account on the spot! We hope that this will help people learn more about what wikiSLO is. We also got the final version of our logo from the Graphic Design students.
Week 18
This was our second week of going to Farmer's Market. We continued telling people about the website. Many people came and learned about the site, a couple even made accounts! The people we told seemed interested in the website.
Week 19
Week 20
This week, we finalized the design of our bus advertisements and printed copies to give to the Transit Authority. The ads should be up soon!
Week 21
On Friday of this week was a Sustain celebration at the Arboretum. All the members of our team were there and we celebrated the end of the year and the progress made on our projects!
Week 22
This is the last week of the school year and, thus, the last week of working on wikiSLO this year. It has been a great experience!
Cody
I am very glad I got the opportunity to work with Rory and Corinne this year. I feel that wikiSLO is a website that helps create a more sustainable community. The content on this wiki is not added or maintained by any one person or group, but instead by the entire community. Hopefully through our efforts we have helped people in the community realize what a great resource this site can be.
Joining Sustain and partnering with wikiSLO has been one of the best experiences of my first year of college! I am so glad that I got to work with Rory and Cody, not to mention learn from them as well. As Cody mentioned above, wikiSLO is 100% a community effort. It is the epitome of sustainability. This site is for the community, by the community. Its purpose is to allow people to share knowledge and learn from others at the same time, and I am so blessed to be a part of its growth. My favorite experience had to have been when we went to the Thursday Night Farmers' Market and interacted with people walking around. It was so rewarding to become a part of the SLO community and tell them about wikiSLO. Some people were fascinated by wikiSLO and a couple had even already heard of it! I had a blast and it was a very rewarding experience (especially when we could see the number of page views & visits skyrocket right afterwards)! All in all, there could not have been a better project or team to work with to help expand my thoughts and knowledge of sustainability than wikiSLO.
- Corinne :)
