Spring Catch-Up

It's been awhile since my last post.  I'm wondering if blogging is on its way out actually.  Maybe I should get a Twitter account, and I can keep people updated on school happenings during the day (i.e., "Chicken in a Cloud today" or "Heading to Rotary" or "Just found out that two junior students have qualified for the National Merit Scholarship program" or "The Board of Education just approved the budget reductions for next year")

Our district technology committee has been discussing whether the school should have a presence on Facebook.  Posting events, changes to events, reminders to parents and students (students, have you heard of Facebook yet?  Apparently it's all the rage).  Not sure when this would occur (or who would ultimately manage the school's page), but more and more schools are developing official sites.

Comments

[Makeyourself 1999]

I think that a Facebook page would send mixed messages. We are not allowed to access Facebook at school, so don't give us a reason to. There is nothing that can be posted on Facebook that isn't acceptable elsewhere either.

[a faithful reader]

The link to your blog is buried under layers of pages. Many don't know it exists. The link should be in a prominent place, such as on the front page of the Middle/High School section.

You can't necessarily judge readership or interest by the number of comments posted. Don't be discouraged from keeping up with your posts. Fresh posts keep readers coming back.

I am interested in your blog--I just don't drill down into the website deep enough to get to it every day.

Which brings up another topic, the website. Without a "search" function, it is not very useful for finding information quickly. Where are the school board minutes? The bell schedule for early release days? Maybe buried in a PDF someplace, but not easily found when you need information right now!

A Facebook presence sounds useful to me; Twitter is maybe less useful with the small character-count messages. A more functional online presence may be the way to cut down on all the first-class mailings of information better suited for electronic distribution.

I am glad you are thinking about the ways a community communicates. The ideas you suggested should save time and money as well as give us better, more timely information.