National eXtension Initiative

The Joint Council of Extension Professionals has honored eXtension’s HorseQuest community of practice with its Excellence in Teamwork award. This honor, awarded annually, encourages and recognizes successful Extension team programs or projects that demonstrate effective performance and significant result impacts at community, area, state or multi-state levels.

Team members recognized and supporting the nomination included: Betsy Greene, University of Vermont; Kathy Anderson, University of Nebraska; Krishona Martinson, University of Minnesota; Christine Skelly, Michigan State University; Karen Waite, Michigan State University; and Elaine Bailey, University of Maryland.

The nomination noted: “The eXtension HorseQuest leadership team was instrumental in developing and sustaining both web content and the team of national experts, resulting in an innovative, educational resource. The website (www.extension.org/horses) provides a variety of methods and learning opportunities related to health, care, management, and training of horses. Website resources include: interactive learning lessons, webinars, frequently asked questions, basic information, and “Ask the Expert”. Through self guided learning lessons, horse enthusiasts can move at their desired pace, or, research the topics through the “best of the best” articles available on the site. Content is delivered through text, photos, videos, podcasts, flash applications, and interactive chats. The HorseQuest community of practice has led the way in providing unique educational opportunities to reach their clientele.”

Recently the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) asked for customer testimonials about eXtension. Testimonials came from comments about the web site, webinars, Ask an Expert, Moodle courses (learning lessons) and YouTube . See http://create.extension.org/node/86668

Learn how to generate content, build community, increase participation and do it all in a safe manner for youth and adults.

45-minute interactive and instructive tutorials will help you develop strategies that are engaging, interactive, safe and effective. The webinars are designed for those new to social media, as well as advanced users. All the webinars are listed on eXtension’s Learn calendar, http://www.extension.org/learn.

Last week’s webinar, Choosing Your Channels, showed how a quick survey of your audience can help you understand the audience’s interest and investment in social media. It focused on finding your primary audience and how it will affect your engagement online. Finally, the webinar examined how a social media strategy can help meet your organizational goals.

Find links to the PowerPoint presentation, the webinar recording and Q&A at http://www.4-h.org/get-involved/social-media/training.aspx.

This week’s session is Building Your Social Media Channels on Wednesday, May 25 at 2 p.m. Eastern Time, http://www.extension.org/learn/event/210.

June sessions for advanced users:
Content Generation- Wednesday, June 1
Online Safety Best Practices – Wednesday, June 8
Measuring your Impact – Wednesday, June 15

More on social media for 4-H, www.4-H.org/social-media.

Questions? Contact Ashley Lusk at 4Hmarketing@4-H.org

All of eXtension’s organic agriculture webinar recordings on organic farming and research are now available in one location, http://www.extension.org/pages/25242/webinars-by-eorganic.

The list includes more than 35 webinars from 2010 and 2011. There’s even a link to more than 20 sessions from the USDA 2011 Organic Farming Systems Conference in Washington, D.C. on March 16 – 18.

Future webinars will be listed on this page with a link to register.

To receive notices about upcoming webinars and notices when new sessions are archived, sign up for the eOrganic newsletter at http://eorganic.info/. The May newsletter is online at http://www.extension.org/pages/58449/may-2011-eorganic-updates.