We had a busy 2008 at AboutSF. Before 2009 gets too far along, I want to report our accomplishments from the last 12 months. During our third year of operation in behalf of science fiction, we accomplished several important tasks.

•Organized and presented a day of teacher training, Teaching Science Fiction: A Portable Workshop, at the SFRA/Campbell Conference and the World Science Fiction Convention (for more, see below).
•Added a new online course specifically focused on science-fiction novels through KU's Continuing Education program. KUCE reports that our two online classes have comparable enrollment levels to other continuing education English classes. In fact, we're developing a similar number of attendees to KU's on-campus summer SF Institute.
•Edited and posted four new videos to our YouTube educational series, two about science-fiction films featuring Forrest Ackerman, and two on science fiction's value, including highlights from the 2005 Campbell Conference.
•Added the Heinlein Prize Trust to our roster of supporters. We have assisted their endeavor to promote Heinlein's work and commercial space travel by hosting World Space Week's "Have Spacesuit-Will Travel" teaching kit on our online Lessons Library and by including several donated Accelerated Reader tests for Heinlein juveniles to our teaching workshop packet.
•Posted new additions to our website, including new scholarly essays, an enhanced section on "Science Fiction for Physics Students," and new reader's guides from recent Tor Books releases, like Cory Doctorow's Little Brother.
•Received our largest donation of SF books and magazines and sent them to several of the libraries who had signed up to receive books.
•Secured a new, temporary office on the KU campus during Wescoe Hall construction.

The year 2008 brought several unique opportunities and challenges. The two Portable Workshops provided over 30 educators with a day of training and a CD-ROM packet of sample syllabi, video clips, sample handouts, Heinlein AR tests, and course proposal materials. Presenters James Van Pelt and Mary Rose-Shaffer provided case studies in SF in the classroom; Lindalee Stuckey, Bonnie Kunzel, Diana Tixier Herald, and Susan Fichtelberg offered text recommendations for a variety of age groups. As I’ve collected and analyzed the feedback forms, it's clear that the attendees left feeling confident about integrating SF into their classrooms.

On the Internet front, AboutSF.com received over 400,000 hits during 2008. We also received a generous year of free web development and hosting from Ben Trafford and the staff at nSightful. We're grateful for their help and will now continue retooling the site in-house with our KU staff. Meanwhile, two of our videos on YouTube have exceeded 10,000 hits. Two volunteers, Sean McConville and Tim Maroney, logged over 24 hours of raw video footage from the Campbell Conference and KU interviews to help edit and create these condensed video projects.

What’s ahead?
In the last eight weeks, we've written new grants and helped several volunteers successfully propose the Portable Workshop at Balticon and Worldcon in 2009 (more coming soon). Implementing two workshops in '08 has made it easier for us to confidently provide materials to individuals willing to donate the time to running the workshop.

Additional goals:
•Adding new online resources, including recently donated lesson plans on Philip K. Dick, early SF, and college-level SF courses.
•Creating a larger video project featuring the Campbell Conference raw footage--a "Best of 2005" film demonstrating how SF writers use science fact.
•Condensing key sections of the Portable Workshop for use in shorter, targeted presentations, such as teacher in-service days.
•Proposing the Portable Workshop at this year's Worldcon in Montreal.

As always, we welcome input--particularly from teachers, scholars, publishers, authors, and SF fans. Contact info@aboutsf.com directly with additional suggestions for areas you'd like to see developed.