Convince administrator to use blogging for teachers

My job as the Tech Curriculum Coordinator is to find tools that would benefit teachers in integrating technology in the classroom.

How do I convince administrator that using blogging is the way for teachers to have an up-to-date information to share to parents as to what their children are learning in the classroom. Of course, there are many benefits to blogging and this is just one of them.

I would like to propose using blogging (most likely to be hosted by edublogs) to replace the static classpages that we have in the school website.

I am looking at it in the perspective of a technology person. How do I convince administrator to okay such proposal? Please help.

By the way, I was able to convince the administrator that using del.icio.us account. Thanks for all those who replied.

Tags: blog, blogging, teacher_blogging

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Permalink Reply by Terry Parent on October 19, 2009 at 9:13pm
We had this same problem at our school. Although you have to pay for this service, check out myteacherpages.com for your teachers. It was easy to convince because it is so user friendly.

Here is the link to our school website. From here check out the class news, and then, my website is the 8th grade website. This shows how we integrated myteacherpages with our school website.

www.stpatrickcatholicschool.com
Permalink Reply by Nahum on October 19, 2009 at 9:14pm
Hi, before anything sorry by my writting english but Im an english second language person. I pretty interesting in to know how do you think in manage the content information in the school webpage. Your idea is that every teacher in your school have a blog for they classes?? or the home page of you school become a blog.???

I think that your are looking something more focus in help in your content classes like moodle.org, Moodle is a kind o blackboard or lotus note plataform, or what are you idea about implementing blogs in your school???
Permalink Reply by Nic Finelli on October 19, 2009 at 9:20pm
I have been struggling with this one too. Get a couple of teachers to try it out with you. We are trying to use blogger because of the ease of adding pics and video via picasa and creating blog posts through e-mail or text. Still working on getting video unblocked in district on blogger. The other big selling point is that students would work with the teacher to create the blog posts - summarizing, synthesizing, collaboration on what should be posted for the day. With a daily blog, teachers can become their own media outlets. I have stayed away from edublogs because of ads, but edublogs.tv gives added bonus for uploading video.

Way to go on delicious. Just got that through last year. We have 12 elementary schools all networked.
Permalink Reply by Nahum on October 19, 2009 at 10:08pm
what's wrong about ads???
Permalink Reply by Jonathan Wylie on October 20, 2009 at 5:45am
Why not collect a sample of teacher blogs, or class pages, that are already out there to show the administration some examples of what can be achieved and the benefits of adopting that system for your district. If you find some really good examples, it may sell itself. Get people here to chime in with their own sites and choose which ones you like best!

Maybe also consider a parent survey. Do you have internet access at home? Do you think you would benefit from a class web based information system? etc.
Permalink Reply by Jeffrey Thomas on October 20, 2009 at 8:16am
We are putting as much electronic information out there as possible as a way to keep parents up-to-date and eliminate the need for paper, folders, etc. Blogs, websites, etc. can be updated and distributed much more quickly than paper information. Not to mention the fact that a lot of the paper information never makes it home. Here is a link to my tech website for Grace School in Houston. From there you can click the Faculty websites button to see all of our teacher websites. In addition, some of our teachers have added blogs. I have included the links as well.

My Tech Web Site for Grace School

Kindergarten Blog

Early Childhood Blog
Permalink Reply by Lauriene Tschang on October 20, 2009 at 10:11am
Thanks all for your great and wonderful input. I do agree that blogging will make the teacher a media outlet (I like that term). Blogging will help save trees too! Go green.

The major concern of teacher blogging for the administrator is the job of checking (frequently) to make sure that the teachers are blogging properly, grammar use etc. I guess if I am in the administrator's shoes, I would feel overwhelmed beyond doubt to check all of the teacher's blog posts.

Currently we have STATIC class webpages for all grade levels - not per teacher. Each month, teachers submit a Microsoft Word document for their monthly classpages. The administrator reviews it then I post it online. We use HTML coding via DreamWeaver. With blogging, it will be individual teachers blogging their own individual classroom, maintaining it etc.

I use blogger for my own blog "A day in the life of a technology coordinator" because of the ease of use. Yet when I was conducting survey among teachers, I found out that they want "tabs" on their blogs and I guess I am just not technology savvy enough to know how blogger can do that, but edublogs does it.
Permalink Reply by Stephen Ransom on October 21, 2009 at 7:37am
Lauriene,
Forgive my cynicism here, but if your administrator has to check every post published by every teacher, then you have a much bigger problem before you than that of blogging. Does your administrator check/edit everything that the teachers produce? Also, are you confident that your administrator is an authority on the "proper" use of blogs? Of course, it would be wise and in everyone's best interest to properly prepare teachers in advance for the responsibilities and issues surrounding digital citizenship when one makes information public. I think it is the poor judgement of a very few teachers that causes such difficulties for the rest of us (and worries for administrators).

On a more positive note, Edublogs is a great service for educational blogging. The free accounts have minimal advertising on them and have some feature limitations, but the paid accounts are certainly affordable. They allow for tabs, pages, and even the ability to assign rights to students or other colleagues to contribute/post under a single account... or create student accounts all under the control/administration of the teacher.

As far as "convincing" the administration, that has to be grounded in the benefits that blogging can facilitate as well as the assurances that staff/faculty will be properly prepared and supported. There is nothing worse than a poor planned and supported initiative. Teachers know that all too well. Your AUP may need to be updated to incorporate new forms of interaction, but for teachers as well as for students. So, but together a strong plan for your administration with rationale, examples and testimonials (incl. video) that can all be found online, and a plan for teacher support and development.

Also, if it is more of a website tool that you are looking for, wikis can serve that purpose very well. Wikispaces allows teachers to create free, advertising-free accounts. Goolge Sites is also another alternative. Wetpaint and BPworks are also other free tools to consider.

Good luck.
Permalink Reply by Stephen Ransom on October 21, 2009 at 8:16am
Permalink Reply by Erin on October 21, 2009 at 10:33am
These posts were GREAT! I am in a tech. in the classroom class now, and often wonder how administration would feel about some of the websites and ideas we have gone over in class. We have been using blogger in the class, its a great idea to see what other teachers are using in their classroom. I have read a bunch of blogs about lesson plans that have been a great sucess, and a total disaster. I am working in an 8th grade social studies class, and we only have access to the computer lab once a month! There is only one computer in the classroom, and it is only for teacher use. Although implementing tech in the classroom is great, it also comes with alot of challenges.

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