For some time now I have been thinking about how to shape the image of both KirstenWinkler.com and EDUKWEST and as you learned I came to the conclusion that with KirstenWinkler.com, I want to return to what it had been in the first place: my personal blog where I put some thoughts out on the various fields I’m interested in.
This means that the news coverage and analysis part of KirstenWinkler.com moves over to EDUKWEST turning the blog from a solely video interview focused site to a vertical news site for education 2.0 with news articles, opinion pieces, video interviews and product tests.
Although I had some great guest posts from well respected people on KirstenWinkler.com in the past months, the main thing that was holding me back to turn it into a collaborative blog was of course the branding, e.g. the blog is known under my own name. In some cases there has been slight confusion about what I write myself and the articles guest bloggers contributed and of course it did not give them the exposure they deserve and as I value them highly, we have moved this over to EDUKWEST.
Hence KirstenWinkler.com will from now on be the place where I write my personal take on topics I am interested in. The main focus remains on education 2.0 but I also want to explore other facets of related subjects like social media, digital society and big data. You know by now that my interests are quite broad but I am also a believer that in the Internet age everything is somehow connected with each other and a trend that starts at a totally different end of the spectrum will have an impact on education sooner or later. This includes the further growth of the KWestions interview series and probably a revival of my personal vlogs.
EDUKWEST now is becoming the place for news around education 2.0 and I basically see it as a platform where a great bunch of people meet and contribute to but that still gives everyone of us the freedom to write about their favorite topics keeping their identity as a blogger and their own style. Besides the guest posts you are already familiar with from this blog here, I am excited to announce that we are building a core group of writers who are going to contribute on a regular basis.
Today, I would like to introduce you to Benjamin Stewart whose first post “Teachers matter!” is a great example of the new EDUKWEST that aims to offer a broader view on education 2.0. I appreciate Benjamin because besides his extensive knowledge on the topics, he clearly has an opinion that he’s ready and able to defend.
Over the coming days and weeks, you’ll have the opportunity to get to know EDUKWEST’s other writers one by one. All of them have their field of expertise and therefore will bring new aspects to the coverage of EDUKWEST. My core fields will of course remain start-ups and my dear video interviews.
To sum this up, I feel that with the new structure everyone is winning. You, the readers as you can be sure what to expect from KirstenWinkler.com and what will be published on EDUKWEST. The writers as they’ll get the attention for their own content. Myself as I’m surrounded by a great bunch of inspirational people and have a personal blog besides that again.
Now, you just have to make sure that you subscribe to the EDUKWEST RSS feed, follow EDUKWEST on Twitter and like EDUKWEST on Facebook to stay updated on the latest stories, opinion pieces and interviews.
And if you’re interested in joining the new EDUKWEST writer team, you can send me a short message via LinkedIn on the why and where your expertise lies along with some content from your blog (or other references) and we’ll have a Skype call following suit.
