Use of blogs by school adminstrators
Principal Vicki Miles mentioned in her discussion about classroom use of web 2.0 technologies that she was suprised to be the only blogger among a roomful of 50 principals at a recent conference.
So I thought I'd start a discussion about the practice here.
What are some blogs by principals or other educational leaders that you know of? Like? Dislike?
What resources are out there for those school adminstrators who are considering starting a blog?
So I thought I'd start a discussion about the practice here.
What are some blogs by principals or other educational leaders that you know of? Like? Dislike?
What resources are out there for those school adminstrators who are considering starting a blog?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Griff Wigley on
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Here's a principal's blog I like at first glance: Mr. P's Blog (Steve Poling):
Here's one I don't like at first glance: Almost Monday (Glenn Malone )
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Permalink Reply by Vicki Miles on
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Griff,
I'm interested in hearing your reasons for liking or disliking? I'm curious about the possibilities of a blog but my personality type is to wear my wholelife on my sleeve, and occasionally I regret the bits of info I give out, that makes me nervous about a world stage for such moments!
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Vic, a leadership blog is not a diary/journal but a strategic, near-realtime storytelling tool. Self-revelation has to be strategic if and when it's done. It sometimes helps to imagine that there's a reporter's microphone in your face when you're typing away.
As for the blogs I linked to, the Almost Monday blog is primarily being used a bulletin board for school-related happenings and staff announcements. There's little there that's leadership-oriented. He's got great photos but the text that accompanies them is a missed opportunity to affirm people in the photos.
Contrast that with this post about creating a lesson plan for the building by Mr. P. Detailed, thoughtful, clearly a leadership blog post.
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Scott McLeod is a University of Minnsota professor who has a popular edutech blog called Dangerously Irrelevant.
He posted to his blog recently about a wiki he was starting called Moving Forward that "contains resources related to K-12 blogging, including good example blogs to show people."
Looks like some interesting resources there.
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Griff,
At the present time I'm finding the blog is having an effect in my school. It gives me time to reflect before commenting but also my interested staff hear a little more. Their responses have caused a "flurry" here too as we begin to realise the potential of the technology as we use it ourselves.
Tristan's forum comment to night is an example of a "digital native", Di and I are still immigrants, however Di and I have the educational experiences that Tristan enjoys engaging in conversation about . ( you will see I have teased him about educational philosophy tonight in the blog). Its a very Win/ win medium at present. Strange however that we dont manage it so well face to face at school as time impeds and interruptions are endless.
I think in terms of using the blog for educational leadership I have lots to learn, but it may be easier when more people are joining the conversation as my "real" (as opposed to virtual) leadership style relies on using conversation and opportunity to move thinking. I'm enjoying thinking about it though.
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Vic, I'm glad you're experimenting. Knowing that you prefer a little more conversation to keep you engaged in the thinking/reflective aspects of educational leadership makes sense.
I just noticed that you have attached more stories as 'comments' to your Fishing Tales blog post.
It's much better if you post new stories as new blog posts. Why?
#1: the RSS feed for your blog doesn't include comments, so people will likely miss them... like I did! Comments on a blog post are mainly intended for others to react to you.
#2: comments can't be linked to, so if anyone wants to blog your story or email it to someone, they can't do it with a link.
#3: you want as much impact/influence with your words as possible so putting them in a blog post makes it more likely that that'll happen.
So do me and yourself a favor, will you?
Copy/paste the text of two of your comments (the local doctor; and the open door policy) into two new blog posts, one each. And if you can retype up the Melody story that you accidentally deleted, then do that one, too.
After these new blog posts are done, I'll check your work to see if you did your homework correctly and then we can delete those comments.
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A good Principal should lead by example.........I've done my homework!
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Okay, Vic, but I'll have to double check your homework, just in case you tried to pull a fast one. ;-)
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Permalink Reply by Rachael Loucks on -
I am NOT an administrator, but more of a middle manager. I blog regularly. I have a teaching/staff managing blog and I keep a personal blog.
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Rachael,
"Administrator" is Griff's terminology and I have already had a discussion with him about how also feel about the word.
As a PRincipal many people view my role as "administrator" I prefer educational leader, and try very hard to make this my main priority (of course there will always be adminsitrative stuff to do). In that sense we have been discussing the use of blogs to excentuate educational leadership. I'm interested in how you use your blog and who uses it?
Vicki
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Permalink Reply by Rachael Loucks on
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When administrator is used that way, then yes, I believe that I am an administrator. I have three blogs actually. I have a "personal" blog, an preschool educator blog and a blog where I'm talking about my work toward teaching at the college level. My blogs that are education related are to share ideas and information. My blog that is for personal use is more like a diary that I'm sharing with the world.
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