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By: Carlo Brian Angelo S. Nerecena - Editor, MTG Kids Online
Greetings! Last New Year, MTG Kids Online, the online journal of the Mathematics Trainers’ Guild, Philippines, was successfully launched. On its initial run, the reception that it got from the MTG community was very warm and it showed that this site is a promising one. The motive behind the creation of MTG Kids Online was two-fold: i.) to bring the MTG community closer together by providing news and updates about the recent happenings in the MTG, and ii.) to provide an avenue for the MTG Kids themselves to share there thoughts and experiences, both MTG-related or not, to the rest of the community. Anyway, I’m going to talk about some changes that are going to happen in MTG Kids Online. In order to achieve its goals better, this site had to undergo this change, which came about as a solution to a certain problem that arose during this site’s initial run the last three months. I am going to talk about it, in detail, for the rest of this article. The Dilemma  Originally, the layout of MTG Kids Online followed the more traditional website format. This means that new feature articles (usually numbering five to eight) are presented all at once, on a fixed time interval basis (the original plan was every two weeks). The articles are then compiled and neatly organized in a very user-friendly manner. While this set-up proved to be very elegant, several problems arose during the course of this MTG Kids Online’s first few months. For one thing, the task of updating this site using the more traditional website format proved to be more arduous than expected. Aside from uploading the new feature articles all at the same time, a greater amount of HTML programming is needed in compiling all and making links for each of these articles. Then, there was also the issue of the timing of our updates. The original set-up prevented the immediate posting of articles, which did not seem to fit well with the news updates. Thus, some of the site’s news about MTG-related events are only posted weeks after the conclusion of the event, although they could have been posted as early as possible. Finally, while it is one of the site’s goals to have the MTG Kids contribute articles to the site, it turned out to be difficult getting it done on a regular basis. Sometimes, tight class schedules get in the way (they are still students after all), leaving no time for some of our assigned writers to make their articles. Thus, in many instances, the end of the regular two-week period is reached without the sufficient amount of articles ready. The Solution That’s why for the best interest of the readers (and to a similar extent, the editor) of MTG Kids Online, the site will change its layout format. Instead of the traditional website format, it would now follow the blog format (this is a blog after all). This would allow flexibility with the way the site manages its articles. Instead of presenting its new articles all at once, this site would present these only one or two at a time, but on a more frequent time interval. This change provides a good solution to the problems mentioned above. First, it removes the hassle of compiling these articles and organizing them into an issue every two weeks. However, do take note that this site would not shelve this concept completely. From time to time, MTG Kids Online would still compile its most recent articles in what would be now called as MTG Kids Online Digest. This is basically a continuation of the previous MTG Kids Online issues, meaning that the next one would be MTG Kids Online Digest No. 5. All editions of the MTG Kids Online Digest could then be accessed through the Archives section. Second, this change addresses the issue of timing. Since news updates do not have to wait until the end of the two-week period before being posted, readers could now be informed immediately about the recent happenings in the MTG. This also allows the site to post announcements here. Finally, it also deals with the problem of the MTG Kids’ contributions to this site. Thus, even if the assigned writers are unable to make their articles, this would not cause any delay with the posting of the other articles. Conclusion In the days to come, you would observe more the changes that are made on MTG Kids Online. Expect more updates here and on a much more regular basis. Hopefully, this change would allow this site to achieve its motives more effectively and efficiently. To the readers of MTG Kids Online, thank you for receiving this site warmly and keeping it going for its first three months. May you continue your support to keep MTG Kids Online going for the months and years to come! |
