My Superintendent has decided he MIGHT want to start a blog and he would like “…advice on do’s and don’ts and pitfalls to avoid.†This is a district of over 65,000 students K-12. Any blogging superintendents or principals out there have any advice or information?
I am sending you a link to our district Blog. My Supt. requires that the principals submit a weekly post.
http://willardr2.edublogs.org/
(Not working today. Probably maintenance)
Comments are OFF
Each building/dept. has a different category
We can post any time of the week and time-stamp our post to post on Friday
We have to post BEFORE the Supt. so his remains the top post. If we post late we can time-stamp our post to have posted earlier. Kind of like tricking the blog. 🙂
If your Supt. had something that he wanted comments on he could open the comments for certain posts. I am considering doing that as a principal. For example, after Open House, blogging about it and requesting feed back on how to make it better.
Hope this helps!!! Loved your webcast on WOW.
Thanks Melinda!!!
Brian,
My sup has been blogging for about 6 months, mostly on curriculum and change issues.
http://staff.prairiesouth.ca/blogs/index.php?blog=2
Tom Sheehan (NZ) has moved from being a classroom teacher blogging with his kids to 5 weeks ago becoming the principal of a small, rural , NZ schoool. And yes … he is blogging … and does read this blog of yours. One of the catch phrases we use to each other is ‘Learning is messy you know!’ so thanks for that. Anyway … you can find Tom on his ‘professional blog’ here – The Long Run http://www.tomsheehan.co.nz/
or his whole school beginning to blog (he is teaching the staff this coming week) http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=89616
If I was you I’d email him and have a conversation about what he is doing – it’s different and good and will be FANTASTIC once they are up and running.
When setting admin up with a blog, I encourage them to start with comments off. Get use to the style of the blog, to blog writing, and even post comment expectations so that parents and the community know what will be and not be answered/talked about on the blog.
Good luck!
I would recommend you plug them in with the other administrators blogging on LeaderTalk. Lots of examples of how other administrators are using blogs and how they can be used. My latest article in Interactive Educator is about administrators who blog. (It’s not available online yet in PDF form, but should be soon.) You might share a copy of that article. On comments, definitely have moderation turned on. I would leave comments on, however, because the feedback element of blogging is so essential to the communication form. Getting feedback is one of the major ways people understand the power of blogs. You might also share Feedblitz (www.feedblitz.com) and have your superintendent offer that as way for people (who are not currently RSS/blog readers) to keep up to date with postings sent via email. Feedblitz is a free service people manage for themselves.