Lots of people are already Yahoo Group members, but they don’t know that these groups can be used for more than just Email.
Others have never even heard of Yahoo Groups.
If you fall into the second group, you may be thrilled to discover this totally free way to communicate with a large group, and receive support from new friends who share your interests.
And, if you’ve heard of Yahoo Groups, but have only used it as an Email tool, you may be surprised to discover that you can also use Yahoo Groups to share photos, files, links, and much more with a group that can be as public or private as you like.
Create a Yahoo Group – It’s free!
1. Go to Yahoo Groups and create a Yahoo ID, if you don’t have one already. Then, click on Start your group today.
2. Select a category for your group. Mine are all in Schools & Education/Student Organizations.
3. Describe your group (Ex. On Living By Learning Group) and fill in the Email address for your group (Ex. onlivingbylearning@yahoogroups.com.)
4. Verify that you’re human and you’re done.
5. Actually, you’re not done because you can play with the Group Settings (in the Management section) to select open or restricted membership; member access to web tools; and the group’s description and appearance.
Join a Yahoo Group – It’s free too!
Joining a Yahoo Group is easy. You can browse through thousands of groups sorted by categories on Yahoo Groups.
Or, you can go directly to the On Living By Learning Group where you can click on the big blue button labeled “Join This Group.”
You will be asked to sign in with a Yahoo ID. If you don’t have one, it’s still possible to become a group member, but this requires linking your Email address to a Yahoo profile.
What can you do with a Yahoo Group?
Some Yahoo Group members – not you! – never visit the home page of their group. They receive and reply to messages from their personal Email account, and never discover the many available options.
Take a look at the sidebar on the left side of The On Living By Learning Home Page (or your own Yahoo Group home page) to find a list of Web Tools including: Messages, Files, Photos, Links, Database, Polls, Members, Calendar.
Keep in mind that the Yahoo Group Moderator decides if these tools will be available, and if members can modify these, or not.
Messages
On the home page of your Yahoo Group, you’ll find a tiny hyperlink at the top labeled “Edit Membership.” Here you can choose between: Individual Email where you’ll get an Email anytime anyone posts a message; Daily Digest where you’ll get all the messages of the day in one Email; and Web Only where you have to visit the Yahoo Group web site to see the messages.
If you choose to view the messages online, you’ll notice that when you select a message, all the related replies or preceding messages are listed below. This allows you to follow the complete discussion on a topic.
Files
Many school groups use a binder to store all the documents necessary for running a volunteer committee, but now there is a much better way.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to rewrite letters and forms because I crashed a computer, or because I received a binder with only paper documents.
Instead, you can create a virtual volunteer committee binder.
In this Book Fair Sample found in the Files section of the On Living By Learning Yahoo Group, you’ll find that I used the “Create Folder” link to create a Book Fair Folder. Then, I used the “Add File” link to upload documents from my computer.
Now, anyone can open those files, and save and edit them to suit their needs.
Photos
Share your photos in a Yahoo Group album, where only group members can view the pictures.
Photo albums can be used to remind volunteers of an event layout or to share the memories. Group members can copy and save photos to their own computers.
Links
In this Book Fair example, I’ve added a couple of links to companies that provide resources for book fairs.
On other Yahoo Groups, I’ve added links as project resources or as reference material for a topic.
Database
The Database section can be a simple way to record information. Yahoo Groups provides templates for creating Contact Lists, Phone Books, an Inventory, FAQ, Recipes, etc.
However, you can modify the tables to record whatever you need.
For example, on our Girl Scout Troop Yahoo Group, we created a database table to log in TV viewing hours for a Couch Potato Interest Project.
Polls
Polls can be a good way to access interest between different options. I’ve included one poll sample, but you can imagine many more.
I’ve seen polls asking whether homeschool educators should be certified and another, created by my daughter, that sought to discover the most popular candies.
Calendar
The group calendar is arguably the most useful Web Tool for many Yahoo Groups. You can record all the events of the year, including detailed notes for program planning. And, you can set reminders to alert group members of any upcoming events.
My Yahoo Groups
I’ve joined many Yahoo Groups. Here are some of my favorites:
Local Homeschool Groups -
- CDHE – Capital District Home Educators in NY’s Capital Region.
- capitaldistricthomeschool – Another Yahoo Group for homeschool families in NY’s Capital Region.
- FERNetwork · Family Educators Resource Network in the areas of Columbia, Rensselaer, and Albany counties in New York and in Berkshire county in Massachusetts.
- SaratogoHomeschoolers – Homeschoolers in the Saratoga, NY area.
- NYHEN-Support – This list is hosted by the New York Home Educators’ Network (www.nyhen.org) and provides resources for anyone homeschooling in New York.
- Homeschool –
Gifted Education -
Girl Scouts
Education -
Writing and Homeschool -
Do you have a favorite Yahoo Group? Please share in a comment.
If you would like to receive free articles from On Living By Learning by email, click this link. You can also click here to receive updates on a RSS Feed Reader.
Share This Post:
{ 1 trackback }
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Fantastic article! I’ve seen all the features you talked about, but have never used any except what has to be done to submit an article to the STC group.
I belong to two local homeschool Yahoo groups but don’t find them very helpful because they are targeted to children younger than 11. My son is 13. Homeschooling a teen and preparing him or her for college is a different ball game. I don’t know why, but when most people think of homeschooling they think it applies to elementary education only. You’ve got me thinking about starting my own homeschool group for teens in our area.
I get a lot of odd looks when I tell people I homeschool my 13-year-old, like there must be something wrong with us. We didn’t start homeschooling until my son was 11 and traditional school no longer worked for him. I’m a more than part-time tutor and many of my students are like my son in many ways – square pegs being forced into round holes with a whole slew of negative labels attached to them because they just don’t fit. With the low self-esteem so many kids have in “the system” it makes me wonder how they manage to get into college and make a life for themselves at all.
After observing all this for a couple of years now, I understand why so many employees hate their jobs. They are never taught to work in their strengths or that they should like or even love what they do for a living. All through school they were persistently drilled on their weaknesses. They associate work with pain and I think it’s often because school was so painful for them. School is our first experience with work.
Our parents also taught us that work was for making a living and you didn’t have to like it. It was your duty to do your job and the company would take care of you. We all know that none of that’s true.
Thanks for the list of Yahoo groups related to homeschooling. As soon as I finish this comment I’m checking some of them out!
Sherri
Thanks! We haven’t decided whether we will continue homeschooling through high school, but I will be interested to learn from your experience.
There is one national Yahoo Group for families homeschooling teens that you might want to check out:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/homeschool2college.
Sandra
Thanks for this Sandra. it’s a really good overview of Yahoo Groups. I never realised there was so much to it before.
This is a great overview. I’m a member of a few Yahoo! groups, but I’ve never taken the time to explore the advanced features.
Sandra, thanks for the link to the group. I’ll check it out.
Social Bookmarking Tips Guide is unique website promotion and products marketing book written to increase AdSense and affiliate income, boost product sales, and make your sites as profitable as never before. Being completely different, Social Bookmarking Tips Guide will help you discovering new website promotion and product marketing tactics that really work today.