Do School Districts Blog?
Do you wonder if public school districts blog?
I do too.
After all, the schools have a huge potential audience - basically, anyone in their local area with a school age child would be a potential reader. I also think that potential employees might be interested in a school district blog.
I decided to do some exploration.
After several searches, I was glad to see that some school districts all across the country are already taking advantage of blogging as communication tool.
I thought I’d share a roundup of school district blogs that I found. So, here is a sampling from all over the country:
- From Dobbs Ferry, New York - Dobbs Ferry Union Free School District School Ties Blog. This blog is obviously being used to convey school policy, such as information about Cyber-bullying, to parents. The postings, however, are infrequent. I did notice that comments can’t be left directly on the blog, but must be mailed in.
- From Weber County, Utah - I found a different approach at this school district. Rather than maintaining a single district blog, the district encourages teachers to blog as a means of communicating with students, faculty, and parents. Here’s the Weber School District central blog page.
- From Camden, South Carolina - Kershaw County School District Blog. This is a great example of how a blog doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive to be effective - it’s a basic WordPress blog - but it’s updated regularly. The main blogger is the district’s superintendent, Dr. Frank Morgan. I did some scouting around and discovered that this district is blog savvy! Not only does the superintendent blog, so do several teachers. They also podcast!
I also found a number of school district websites that appeared to be in the early phases of blogging. (Such as, district websites that had a link to an unpopulated blog page.)
Personally, I found it encouraging that public school districts are beginning to make use of blogs.
Congratulations to all of the school district bloggers!
Does your school district blog? Do you think that it should?
Why, or why not?
Do you know of any other effective school district blogs?
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Tags: school blogs, school district blogs, technology in schoolsRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Blogging, Non-profits
10 opinions for Do School Districts Blog?
Dane
Apr 4, 2008 at 6:34 am
The Galloway School, in Atlanta, GA, uses the FirstClass system - I’m sure others use that as well. It’s a self-contained ecosystem - walled garden approach, where email and searches can go anywhere within the system but not outside to the Internet or into the system from the Internet. Each student, parent, teacher, and administrator at the school is assigned a unique ID and PW for access. The system contains email, teacher blogs, homework assignment postings, announcements, calendars (athletics, academics, extracurricular), and a parent’s bulletin board. It’s a very interactive system, and the parents feel very involved. The students use the system extensively, as it’s the one common system to which they know that all their friends have access. Parents appreciate the access control - of course many parents have allowed their children other forms of internet access, as well. From a blogging perspective, teachers absolutely use the system, not only for posting homework, readings, and project requirements - but also for postings about the happenings of the classroom for parents. Galloway is a private school, and may have some benefits not available to some other schools, but the parents appreciate the access to the information.
Liz Fuller
Apr 4, 2008 at 7:33 am
Hi Dane
Thanks for sharing - this sounds like a great use of current technology tools to increase communication among and between schools, parents and students. I’m sure it helps everyone feel more connected.
I wish that this had existed when my kids were in school - we had to rely on digging through backpacks for wrinkled announcement papers!!!
John Hendron
Apr 10, 2008 at 7:02 am
Goochland County Public Schools (VA) began with teacher blogs in 2002; in fall of 2005, they mandated that all teachers maintain a blog.
Today, the blogs are alive and well and many include podcast episodes.
Dr. Frank Morgan, who you mention in your article, was formerly the superintendent in Goochland before leaving for Kershaw County, SC.
As the one who began the blogging initiative in our district, our main goals were a) to increase communications in the community, and b) increase comfort level with Web 2.0 tools for their potential impact on instruction.
Laura Spencer
Apr 10, 2008 at 7:33 am
Thanks for the update John!
It sounds like Dr. Morgan has been inspiring educational blogs wherever he goes.
I’m glad to hear that your district blogs too. I’m sure there are other school district blogs out there - I’d love to hear more about them.
Laura Spencer
Apr 10, 2008 at 7:34 am
By the way, I just checked out the Goochland district’s blog. You get a thumbs up from me! Good job!
Emily Walls Ray
Apr 11, 2008 at 7:28 pm
As a new teacher in Goochland County, the instruction in technology I’ve received through John Hendron and others has been fantastic. It’s been exciting incorporating it not only in instruction, but in communication to students and parents. I try to create a little bit of an e-zine quality about my blog about what goes on in the classroom, so parents can have conversation starters at the dinner table. It’s hard to get some kids to say more than “Fine,” when their parents ask, “How was school today?”
Emily Walls Ray
Apr 11, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Hi–Check out John Hendron’s book, RSS for Educators.
Laura Spencer
Apr 12, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Hi Emily!
It sounds like your district is putting technology to its best use. It’s especially encouraging to see this in the schools.
I’m not familiar with John Hendron’s book, but I’ll look for it.
Anne Lemieux
Apr 18, 2008 at 7:59 am
I am the Media Specialist at Lugoff-Elgin Middle School in Kershaw County. We use podcast to publish the 411@LEMS, Principal’s Pods, Student writings, oratorical contest winners speeches. If you would like to visit our site you can view our voicethread on “Chicken Man Art” we have audio/text comment from around the world. Please feel free to comment, we would love to hear what you think of the students’ art.
Check out my blog at http://lmslmc.wordpress.com/
Laura Spencer
Apr 18, 2008 at 10:08 am
Awesome Anne!
This post seems to have uncovered a whole world of school district blogging.
Keep up the good work everyone!
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