Communicating with Participate Learning
Communications
As a member of our Participate Learning community, we strive to keep you informed and engaged. We hope that you’ll connect with our staff and other educators throughout your time with Participate Learning. We want to hear about the dynamic classroom activities you plan and about the awards you win! Most of all, we want to hear about your Participate Learning experience and the impact you have on your team, school, students, parents and community as a whole.
Interviews with newspapers and television reporters
Many Participate Learning teachers have opportunities to share their successes creating international learning and cultural exchange experiences in their schools and communities. International and U.S. newspapers, magazines, radio stations and even TV journalists have reported on the important work that Participate Learning teachers do to prepare students for an interconnected world. A positive news story adds a terrific activity to your resume, sharpens your public presentation skills and connects you with friends, family and colleagues in your home country.
Share your stories with us
Participate Learning wants to know about your experiences as a teacher and cultural ambassador! Are you holding a cultural or global education event at your school? Have you been honored with an award? Are you planning an exciting classroom lesson? Are you traveling with your team or students? Have you found an interesting way to engage the community or partner with local businesses or organizations?
We may share your story on our website, in our online community or with the media. Please tell us about:
- Your cultural activity and project ideas.
- Travel stories and study visits.
- Honors and awards that you receive.
- Anything else you’d like to share!
Send your ideas, photos, accomplishments and activities to [email protected].
If a reporter contacts you
Please let Participate Learning know immediately. We can help you organize your thoughts so you won’t be nervous, and provide you with any information or materials that might be helpful.
- Email [email protected], provide us with the reporter’s name, media outlet, phone number, and any details on when they plan to write or publish the story.
- Give the reporter Participate Learning’s website (participatelearning.com).
- Inform us when the article or news story will be or is published or aired in the U.S. or abroad.
Preparing for a media interview
Be yourself! If you have been contacted by the media, it is because you’re an innovator—a leader in education who deserves to be showcased. Be friendly. Of course, also be professional, diplomatic and thoughtful in your responses and commentary. Reporters are storytellers. Help them tell stories by sharing some of your own. For example:
- Your path: why you joined Participate Learning and why you came to the U.S.
- New experiences: interesting things about living in a new country and the lessons you’ve learned.
- Cultural exchange: how you share your culture with students and how they respond, what have they taken from those experiences, and how they have extended that learning to others.
- Your adventures: travel, professional development, goals for the future, etc.
No matter how friendly they may be, reporters are professionals doing their jobs. Sometimes a question may surprise you, so take your time. It is alright to politely decline to answer a question or ask if you can give it some thought and respond at a later time. Ultimately, you are speaking to newspaper readers or TV viewers, not just the reporter. Share only what you would be comfortable reading in the newspaper or seeing on TV. Be careful in making cross-cultural comparisons. Participate Learning believes that different cultures (your country’s culture, U.S. culture) are not better or worse than one another—they are simply different, and the differences are what make cultural exchange so interesting and important. Avoid saying anything negative about your students or school, as parents or team members may take offense.
Tips for using social media
Keep in mind that most schools and districts will have policies relating to teacher duties and conduct, use of social media and other online technologies, and maintaining the privacy of student information. Failure to abide by these policies has, in the past, resulted in either serious reprimands, termination of the teacher or trainee by the district and/or criminal charges. Please refer to your school district’s policies for more information regarding specific professional conduct standards.
Email guidelines
As an international educator, it is important to stay up-to-date about items that affect you. Participate Learning’s preferred method of communication is email. As your visa sponsor, Participate Learning often sends important information to teachers on a variety of topics including visa services, taxes, renewal, benefits, travel, and events.
Be sure that you are receiving and reading emails from Teacher Resources to ensure you get the information needed to maintain lawful J-1 status.
Some teachers have reported that emails from Participate Learning have been sent into their “bulk” or “junk” email. This is usually a function of an email host’s default spam filters. It is important that you ensure your email account does not classify Participate Learning emails as spam. As an email account holder, you are allowed to set specific spam criteria for your account.
Depending on which email host you use, you may be required to add emails coming from @participatelearning.com to your “safe list” to ensure they are routed to your email inbox. If your email host is Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, MSN, or Yahoo, please follow the guidelines below to ensure that you receive all email communication from Participate Learning. Direct any questions or comments regarding these guidelines to the teacher resources team at [email protected].
Gmail accounts
- Log into your Gmail account, and open the latest email from Participate Learning.
- Click the Options arrow located next to the “Reply” button.
- Choose “Add Participate Learning to Contacts list” from the drop-down menu.
Follow the same steps when you receive your first Participate Learning Update, the Participate Learning monthly newsletter to teachers. The Participate Learning update is sent from September through May of each year.
Spam
Check your Spam folder regularly for Participate Learning email. If a message from Participate Learning has been filtered into the Spam folder, follow these steps:
- Click on the “Spam” link to open your “Spam” folder.
- Click on the email to open it.
- Click the “Not Spam” button at the top of the message.
Participate Learning emails will be delivered from “@participatelearning.com.”
Hotmail and MSN Accounts
- Log into your Hotmail account and click on the Options link in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
- Click “Safe and blocked senders” in the Junk Email menu.
- Click on “Safe Senders.” Type @participatelearning.com in the “Sender or domain to mark as safe” field, and click “Add to list.”
Yahoo accounts
- When you are logged into your Yahoo account, click on “Settings,” (on the top right-hand part of the screen) and then “Mail Options” (on the left-hand toolbar).
- Click on “Filters.”
- Click “Add.”
- Under “Filter Name” add “Participate Learning.”
- Next to “From” choose “ends with” and enter “@participatelearning.com.”
- Under “Then…Move the message to this folder,” choose “Inbox.”
- Click “Add Filter” (button at bottom left).
AOL accounts
- Log into your AOL account and click on the “Settings” button.
- Click on Spam Controls link.
- Under the Additional Spam Filters section, click on “Spam Filters by Address” and choose the “Custom” option.
- Choose the “Allow mail from” option and enter @participatelearning.com in the blank marked “Enter Screen Name of E-mail Address.” Click the plus sign to add senders to your custom list.
- Click “Save” to save this information in your spam controls.
- You should now receive messages from Participate Learning in your inbox.
Opting out of Marketing emails with Participate Learning
As your visa sponsor, we have a responsibility to keep you informed about programmatic information that is vital to your participation. Participate Learning will never share your email address with other businesses or companies. We also give you the option to remove yourself from non-essential marketing emails we may send. To opt-out of marketing newsletters, click here.