I posted about this a while ago -- there was some controversy a couple of Board meetings ago with respect to the Superintendent writing his own blog. Kim Cranston, the Rockwood Director of Communications, put together a great case for why Dr. Larson should have a blog, how it would help communication with the community, and showed how other districts and superintendents are already doing it. I thought I would add a few links to some of the blogs that she found as well as some others, so you readers can check for yourselves on how it works.
Kim Cranston's Links
- Blogging to my Advantage
- Blog referenced from above link
- Blogging With the Doors Open
- Superintendent Bob Lewandowski's Blog
- Bend-La Pine Schools Superintendent's Blog
- National School Boards Association Board Buzz Blog
My Links
From looking at these links, and the ease through which I found them (a bunch of really simple google queries), it is abundantly clear that districts who are looking forward to the 21st century are encouraging new, modern, effective electronic means of communication between their citizens/customers and the administration. The corollary of that is that Boards who are actively preventing their administration from joining the 21st century may be spending most of their time looking backwards. Is this what we want?
What are blogs?
Blogs, or more formally web logs are a kind of online diary. There are about the easiest way possible to publish your thoughts on the internet in a way that anyone can read them. The thing that differentiates them from email, frequently asked questions lists, and normal web pages, is that blogs enable a two-way conversation. Each blog post has a section following the article where readers can add their own comments to the post. The author can read these comments, reply to them, and carry on a conversation with real, live people.
There are already places on the Rockwood site, like Ask the Supt, where a teacher, student, parent, or patron can send an email to the Superintendent. These, however, represent one-way communication. The asker gets a direct reply, and no one else gets to see the answer. Questions that are asked frequently get added to the Frequent Asked Questions list on that same page. There is nowhere on the site where people can engage in two-way, interactive, personal communication with the Superintendent, other than on this potential blog.
Reading a blog
There are a couple of ways to read what is written on a blog. The easiest way is to just visit the website where the blog lives. There, you can see the content, see past articles, read comments, submit comments, send email, and more. Very easy, as its the same model of visiting a website that we're all used to.
But there is another way.
I'm going to get a little technical for a second, but it won't last long. One other characteristics that blogs have is that they broadcast updates when new articles are added. Using a kind of message called Really Simple Syndication (RSS), they send out announcements of changes to blog comments. On my blog, you can see a small orange rectangle with three short, white arcs on the right side. This is my RSS link. If you have a piece of software called a Blog Reader, you can subscribe to these RSS announcements. Then, when a change is made to a blog to which you're subscribed, you'll be notified, and the new article will be ready and waiting for you in your Blog Reader. I guess you can think of it as a way of building your own customized newspaper carrying articles about topics you're interested in reading about. I follow about 100 blogs every day, consisting of 30-40 new posts daily.
So, what Blog Readers are out there for you to use? The easiest way is to use Google Reader. This is a service provided by Google that allows you to subscribe to these announcements and read the articles that are ready for you. Its a really easy site to use, with lots of help. If you have any problems getting it up and running for you, drop me a note, and I'll help. Aside from that, there are programs that you can run on your Windows, Mac, or Linux desktop that will do the same thing. My favorites are Omea Reader for windows and New News Wire for Mac (I don't have a favorite for Linux, but if you're using Linux, I probably don't need to help you with this!).
Once you do decide to use a Blog Reader, your next challenge is to find good blogs to read. I can help! If you right-click this link and save the contents as a file, you'll download a file to your computer that contains the RSS addresses of four different blogs -- this one, and three from Rockwood. You can use this file to import these blog subscriptions into your reader. Again, any of these tools should give you lots of help in doing this, but the key is that you're looking for some menu entry or link about "Import Subscriptions" or something like that. Import this file, and you'll be on your way! And again, if you have any problems, let me know, and I'll try to help.
Adding articles to a blog
Posting to a blog is easy. Using a fill-in-the-blank text box on a website like blogspot.com, where this blog is hosted, you can write what you want to, add links to other web sites, add images, highlight text, and press Save to create your message easily and in a non-technical manner. I'm sitting in a Bread Company right now, in fact, typing this into my blog. Its really easy, I blog all the time, and anyone can do it.
Contrast this with regular websites on the internet. Formal websites require designers and programmers to work for days and weeks to create the appearance ("look and feel" in technical parlance) and feature set that will be used by its visitors, and then each page needs careful attention to make it look correct for all its visitors. Any website you visit, like Yahoo!, STLtoday, or Rockwood, requires these professionals.
Conclusion
I'm sorry if part of this post got a little technical. Welcome to the internet! You can take comfort in the fact that your kids can probably explain this stuff to you if I wasn't clear about it :) Seriously, blogging is a great way to establish connections with readers all over the district, and even world. I have readers of my professional blog from all over the world -- they send me comments, I answer their questions, and we learn from each other.
Its easy, its free, and its the wave of the future. Rockwood should catch that wave now, or risk being swept out to sea, as just another fish in the big pond.
-- bab
2 comments:
As an Employee of Rockwood, who has access the the Rockwood Insider (intranet) I wanted to share with you that Dr. Larson was able to create a blog on the district's Insider (intranet). I guess not being able to have the blog on the external website accessable to parents, community members and everyone else who has a vested interested in Rockwood is due to the BOE's requirements to have the blog only on the district's intranet for the time being, as you mentioned a few weeks ago in a previous entry.
One of Dr. Larson's entries was about an assembly at Rockwood Summit High School where a mother who's daughter was murdered has learned to forgive her two killer's through a method refered to as ubuntu.
It was a very enlightening, warm hearted shareing of the event, complete with pictures and personal thoughts.
It would be nice if the BOE would see this and how many staff members have posted positive comments in regards to his blog, and realize they should let Dr. Larson blog on the external site where parents, community members, and all other interested parties may participate.
Thank you for such a wonderful comment. This is truly one of the best reasons by the Superintendent should be allowed to blog -- to get out information like this.
I appreciate the time and effort it took you to find and read my blog, and that you took even more time to write to me.
Thank you.
-- bab
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