As a central office administrator, I use blogs in a variety of ways. I keep track of my own thinking, I share success stories, I point to relevant resources/articles, and I demonstrate transparency in my professional dealings. I keep Haulin' 'Net current as my educational worldview; and I maintain Making Waves to highlight school sports and art stories.
This year, though, I leveraged blogs, wikis, webpages, audiocasts, enhanced audiocasts, and web video for political expedience. At stake were some much needed technology upgrades in our schools. The county commissioners have a proposal on the table right now to nearly double the technology request approved by the Board of Education.
The proposal would ensure a 5-year replacement cycle on all computers in our 3000+ inventory. There would be a significant migration toward laptops. Most of our 700+ teachers would get data projectors within two years, and all of our 17 campuses would gain robust wireless canopies within two years.
So, how did this come to be?
Probably several reasons. One, it was time. Two, this was a team effort; all schools participated in making their cases. Three, we kept our efforts in the open at a page called Budget OneStop.
At Budget OneStop, we demonstrate the role of technology in our schools and our needs. We have links to state initiatives, local newspaper articles and editorials, videos and audiocasts from our schools, sample projects from the blogs of local school tech leaders, archives of local technology inspired learning projects, results of data collection on student technology use in our schools, and---of course---pertinent pro-technology blog entries and letters from local school leaders.
As school leaders, we have a responsibility to show our funders and stakeholders how school is changing. In a concerted effort, we used blogs, wikis, webpages, audiocasts, enhanced audiocasts, and web video to raise the visibility of our technology potential and needs.
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