Did you know that maintaining an online newsletter can help you attract more subscribers and build a strong online community? An online newsletter is very similar to a blog, but focused on sharing information with the members of your community. But the big question is: “Are there any free online newsletter platforms for teachers?” Well, we have compiled your ultimate guide to newsletters for teachers.
Are you looking for free online newsletters for teachers, educators and parents? Or maybe you want to build your own newsletter site. If you are, check out this post. In this blog post, I’ll share all the details that you need to know about using an online newsletter platform and how to use it to grow your subscribers.
Before we dive into content ideas, let’s consider some essential best practices for a successful emails newsletter heading into the fall:
- Pick a cadence and stick to it: Choose a day, time, and frequency for sending your newsletter. When parents know when to expect your content, they’ll be looking for it! A lot of communicators are wondering: “should we decrease the frequency if there is less to share?” Our answer is “no.” If your community is used to hearing from you on a weekly basis, keep it weekly. Remember: less content isn’t a bad thing. For the next few months, we’re looking at quality over quantity.
- Pick a layout and stick to it: One of our favorite analogies to come out of a networking session was: “I think of our newsletters like walking through the grocery store. It’s frustrating when things move around, so I keep the design consistent so the expectations are there.”This is SO true! Whatever content you decide to include in your newsletter, put it in the same place every time. And, do your best to share the same types of content each week as it will make your families’ most sought-after content easy to find, and simplify newsletter creation for you and your team. But WAIT! One more important thing to note — don’t pick a layout and stick to it if your layout is confusing and cluttered.
- Design for mobile, first: Parents are still very much on-the-go, and for districts with many low-income families, a mobile phone may be the communication lifeline. For this reason, we encourage designing your email newsletter for the mobile experience rather than the desktop experience. If you’re new to mobile-first design, we’ve rounded up six tips for mobile-friendly emails in this blog post.
- Don’t go overboard: Your email newsletter shouldn’t be your catch-all for everything. Focus on the most important items for the week, and always link back to your website.
- Personalize and personify your emails: If you want to increase email engagement, make sure your emails come from the same person or entity (i.e. Elmwood Middle School) each week. In addition to adding a familiar name and email, personalize your subject line. Simply changing the subject line from “Your Weekly Newsletter” to “Your Weekly Newsletter, Mia!” can dramatically improve email engagement.
Education World
Education World has been a source of many useful online resources over the years. The site offers several free newsletters. Two of the better ones are Education World Weekly Newsletter, which functions as an update about new resources available at their site, and Education World Headlines Newsletter, which is sort of a “round-up” of key education news that has happened during the week. Both are weeklies.
For Social Studies, Science, Lesson Plans, Other Resources —
National Geographic
Most teachers, at one time or another, have used some of the materials developed by National Geographic. They publish many e-mail newsletters, either coming out monthly or bi-weekly. I’ve found three of their newsletters particularly helpful: Inside National Geographic, National Geographic Education Update, and National Geographic Earth Current.
For All Subjects, Lesson Plans, Other Resources —
Smithsonian Institution
Another source of excellent materials is our national museum, The Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Focus is a monthly newsletter giving an update on new online and on-site resources developed by the Smithsonian. They also have a quarterly newsletter, just for educators, called the Smithsonian Education E-Newsletter. You have to sign-up for the newsletters in two separate places.
For Education News —
ASCD SmartBrief
This daily newsletter, which is my personal favorite out of the ten listed here, is published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), a national organization of educators. This newsletter consistently provides thought-provoking articles from around the country. ASCD also offers an exceptional breadth of other resources and materials.
For Daily Lesson Plans —
The New York Times Learning Network Lesson Plan
The New York Times emails a daily lesson plan using one of their newspaper articles (a link is always provided within the lesson plan itself) as a text. The lesson plans vary in subject areas. They are generally geared to a high school audience, but I’ve gotten good ideas that I’ve been able to modify for my Beginner ESL class.
For Education News —
Public Education Weekly NewsBlast
The Public Education Network, a national organization of progressive school reform groups, publishes a weekly newsletter of thoughtful articles that have been printed in various publications.
For Education News —
Teacher Magazine Update and EdWeek Update
Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) publishes Education Week and Teacher Magazine. They also publish several free e-newsletters, including the weekly Teacher Magazine Update and EdWeek Update. They both provide good education news summaries, links to lengthier articles, and highlights from educators’ blogs.
For Class Management —
Discipline and Learning Newsletter
Marvin Marshall is the author of the book Discipline Without Stress, Punishment or Rewards, and publishes a monthly email newsletter that shares additional thoughts from him and other educators about his philosophy and method of classroom management. I don’t use every aspect of his system. However, I have found its emphasis on putting more responsibility on the student to control his/her behavior (as opposed to the teacher trying to “control” the student) much closer to what works best for my and my students than any other classroom management techniques I know.
For All Subjects, Lesson Plans, Other Resources —
Primary Resources
Primary Resources is a newsletter from the United Kingdom that has a wealth of teacher-created lesson plans and resources. It seems to be generally sent-out every month or so, or whenever a large amount of new resources has been added to the website.
For Language Arts News and Resources —
NCTE In Box
The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) publishes a weekly wrap-up of articles about language arts, including information that would be useful to other content area teachers.
For All Subjects —
Middleweb Newsletter “Of Particular Interest”
Middleweb is a network of educators primarily working in the middle grades. However, this weekly newslet
Microsoft Publisher is the Cadillac of newsletter programs. But just like a Cadillac, its nice but old. More focused for users wishing to print newsletter and brochures. It has tons of templates and has been the industry standard for decades.
Lucidpress is a web-based layout/design software application that creates
“Everything you make in Lucidpress can be printed, published online, or shared through social media with the click of a button. The stunning results will make you look and feel like a design genius.”
It is free for 3 pages per document or $5.95 a month after that
Flash Issue is an extension in Chrome which allows you to “Design amazing emails with our drag-and-drop editor. Create mailing lists and send bulk email”
It is the only one of these which embeds directly into your email
Adobe Slate is not quite a newsletter creator but tool to make striking animated videos or beautiful visual stories.
“Put a unique twist on anything you want to communicate — a book report, weekly customer newsletter or your latest travel adventure. Slate automatically adapts to any device, creating a delightful read on tablets, phones or computers.”
This is a free service with an Adobe account (free to create as well)
Smore is one of the beautiful and effective online flyers and newsletters tools out there. It allows great looking newsletters and gives you back great analytics to see who is looking and what they are looking at.
There is a limited free option but the cost for all the features for educators is $50 per year.
Slides is NOT just for presentations. What I have been using in my job as a Tech TOSA is to send out a weekly newsletter in Google Slides. Each week the link is actually the same as the week before and I only add a new slide to the front of this slide show.
The biggest downfall in using this is that I get no analytics back. Meaning I don’t know how many viewers I get each week.
Importance of Newsletters in Schools
The school newsletter is an email marketing tool which is a part of the student management software. Newsletters inform parents about anything and everything school related: school activities, policies, news, schedule changes, updates, events, performances, student awards, and community happenings. Sent out weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or on an as-needed basis, these school newsletters help parents stay on top of school news. They help parents plan their lives so they are available to attend upcoming school events or engage in school activities with their child. Newsletters inform parents about anything and everything school related: school activities, policies, news, schedule changes, updates, events, performances, student awards, and community happenings.
However, today’s mobile parents are pressed for time. So, a school newsletter template within a school information management system is indispensable. Such a tool helps grab parental attention in less than two minutes. Many paper school newsletters get tossed into the trash, or sit on a pile of unread material. Parents need content that is short, grabs their attention. They consume clear, concise content on their mobile phones and thus the importance of a online school newsletters.
It’s important for schools to create and send newsletters online. This has several benefits –
- It can be accessed 24/7 by the parents
- It can be accessed from different places (Portal, app and email) Schools
- It is easy to create and edit content and add pictures from anywhere
- It saves a ton of paper and protects the environment
- Parents prefer reading school newsletters on the go
Conclusion:
Newsletters for teachers, educational newsletters for students and members…the terminology can get a little confusing. But whatever you want to call them, blogs, e-newsletters, digital newsletters, e-zines…they’re all pretty much the same thing. And there are so many ways to use these digital resources in your classroom!