Putting Your School News Online - Part 7: Series Summary

This 7-part series of posts has been all about getting school news online using blogED. I deliberately split the post into several parts to illustrate how traditional newsletter articles could be presented, and to demonstrate some of the features of blogs.

• Part 1: The Idea – demonstrated text with a Creative Commons image
• Part 2: Why use a blog – demonstrated text and hyperlinks with an ordered list and a screenshot which enlarged when clicked
• Part 3: Benefits of blogED – demonstrated an embedded YouTube video
• Part 4: Setting Up blogED – demonstrated several embedded original videos
• Part 5: Q&A – demonstrated text formatted in tables
• Part 6: One-Click Reading with RSS – demonstrated an embedded audio edition

Hopefully this series has been a useful illustration of how to use blogED to put your school news online. If you start to use it, please comment and link below and let me know how it goes. Bon lait.

Putting Your School News Online - Part 6: One-Click Reading with RSS

 

Download

This will probably be the most technical article in this series. Basically I’ll talk about how to use the blogED RSS feed in an RSS reader. Anybody can then keep up-to-date with the latest school news with just one click.

What is RSS?

So here's how I use Google Reader to keep up-to-date:

So, if you subscribe to a few RSS feeds, you can see the latest news from all of them in one place – your RSS reader. One-click and you’re reading the individual items and you’re up-to-date.

Computer technology is really good at retrieving and displaying information and RSS is a great way to get your computer to do the grunt work for you. You don’t have to check lots of different sites to see what’s happening.

NEXT: Series summary

Putting Your School News Online - Part 5: Q&A

In Parts 1-4 of this series I’ve discussed the use of blogED to put school news online. Here are some questions and possible answers about how and why.

Parents ask:

Will it be easy to use?

• Absolutely. If you have access to the internet you can read the school news. The school can still send you a weekly email reminder to check the blog for the latest news.

Do I need a password?

• No. The blog is free and open for public reading.

Can I add comments?

• Yes. We really want to hear what you think about what’s happening at our school. Since all comments must be approved before going live on the web, there might be a small delay before you see it on the blog.

Will it be easy to search?

• Yes. You can use the search feature at the top of the post. And, since it’s free and public, search engines like Google can help you find any of the items in the school news blog.

I don’t have the internet – how will I get school news?

• The school can still print a limited number of newsletters from the past week’s posts. Students and parents can pick these up from the front office.

Students ask:

Can I upload articles and pictures?

• Yes. But it will have to be uploaded by a teacher, and then approved by the Principal before the post if published on the blog.

Can I add comments?

• Absolutely. You can comment on any posts, for example excursions you or your friends were involved in. But there might be a slight delay before you see them online since they have to be approved first.

Teachers ask:

How will this affect me?

• You can now write news items straight into the blog. No need to save files to a file-server by a set deadline.

What’s the up-side?

• No more double-handling. News goes live as soon as it’s approved. No more deadlines or waiting till the next printed newsletter is published. Readers can see your article as soon as it’s approved by the Principal.

Can I include attachments and images?

• Yes, blogED allows attachments and pictures. These might be a drama production flyer, or an excursion permission note, or photos from an musical event.

Admin staff ask:

How will this change what I do?

• You might need to enter some blog posts for teachers, but there will be much less desk-top publishing.

Isn’t this just too complicated?

• It is different. But doing things in an electronic format and a printed format is double the workload. Using an electronic format to its full potential should alleviate some of double-handling. Once a week (or fortnight) you may have to compile a printout of the most recent posts for readers without computers.

NEXT: One-Click Reading with RSS, and a series summary.
If you have other questions please comment below and I’ll try to answer …

Putting Your School News Online - Part 4: Setting Up blogED

In Parts 1-3 of this series I outlined why blogs should replace school newsletters. In this post I’ll briefly outline how to create and setup a blog using blogED to share school news with your local (and global) community.

First: How to create a school news blog with blogED:


Next is how to manage and make design changes:


And that’s it. You can customise some appearance aspects, add a school logo header, and then write the first post as an introduction to the world. Once you've established your design I wouldn't change it too much or too often, or your readers may become disorientated, so try to get it right from the beginning.

How to write blogED posts:
The final thing is: tell your staff how to share news using blogED. Since this could be a big change they might need some training and encouragement.

NEXT: Q&A and One-click reading with RSS

Putting Your School News Online - Part 3: Benefits of blogED

blogED is a blog host developed by the NSW DEC. All NSW DEC staff can create blogs, and then post articles. The following video gives a quick overview of blogED and how it can be used by teachers and students.

There are plenty of blog hosting platforms. So which one should you use to post school news? I'd go with blogED. Why? Mainly for philosophical reasons, and because I think data liberation and data security are really important. Some key points are:

1. Ownership: Since it’s developed and sanctioned by NSW DEC all the blogED data belongs to, and resides within, the department. Readers can be absolutely sure that the blog posts are authentic. Teachers can get to it quickly with their Portal credentials. blogED probably won’t be taken-over, sold-off, or closed-down soon. And unless the NSW DEC is really desperate for funds the site should be advertisement free (both undesired and inappropriate). 
2. Content Approval: The school Principal (and delegates) can approve all posts and comments before they go public on the web. That mimics the traditional proof-reading stage for a printed newsletter, and also protects against comment spam from fake readers. 
3. Privacy and Copyright: All new content must pass through a rigorous privacy and copyright test before it can be uploaded to blogED. This reminds authors (i.e. teachers writing news items) to check the text, images, and other media they are using before they post. 

Unfortunately the biggest downfall of blogED is the technical side. Reading is fine, but creating and formatting content can be a real headache at times. Since it’s not as customisable or user-friendly as you might expect, it may be tricky to convince your news writers to move from print to blog. (I'll blog more about the downsides once this series is complete.)

But the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. The technical failings might be improved over time. And the benefits (particularly ownership) can’t be found anywhere else. So blogED it is.

NEXT: Setting up blogED to publish school news

Putting Your School News Online - Part 2: Why use a blog

A blog is a perfect way to share school news with your local community (and the rest of the world). It can take on the role of the traditional school newsletter, and provides so much more.

One great example of school news as a blog is at Sandy Beach School. The screenshot image shows the 07-May-2011 post, with the article at the top, followed by a reader comment (click to enlarge). It includes hyperlinks and a photo slideshow with background music.

This highlights some really strong advantages of blogs:

1. Blogs are interactive: Traditional newsletters don’t make subscriber feedback easy. Blogs allow readers to comment. With instant feedback you get a community conversation.
2. Blogs are multimedia: They can contain any web content; text, images, audio and video, and hyperlinks to other web material. Print-format newsletters can’t do that.
3. Blogs are global, public, long-lasting, and searchable:  A blog can reach any reader, anywhere, at any time. And since it’s on the internet a parent can easily search for it via Google and get to any article with one click. No need to download a file from a particular email attachment, and then read through to find the desired item.

So the use of a blog to share school news with your local (and global) community is a really good move. But with so many options for creating a blog, which one should you choose?

NEXT: The benefits of blogED, and how to setup your school news online.

PS: Other school blog examples with reader conversations:

• Hawkesdale P12 College – a Techno College
• Throw the Starfish

Putting Your School News Online - Part 1: The Idea

Technology is fantastic for quickly sharing information with people you care about. At the moment my school shares news by sticking lots of information together as a newsletter, and then emailing it to parents. The parents have to check their emails, download the file, and ensure they have the right software so they can read it. Three steps, three clicks. Works fine, so why change it?

Because internet technologies help us to rethink how we share school news, getting your readers to it with just one click.

Rather than compiling a number of news items into a newsletter on a weekly or fortnightly basis, and sending it as a big lump to parents, each news item could be shared as a separate post on a blog.

It’s instant, it’s bite-size, there’s no file download, and it’s Google searchable.

So how can it be done?

NEXT: What is a blog? And why use blogED?

Comments

Copied from original post

Ian says:

08 Jul 2011 at 01:17 PM
An interesting idea

Audrey Nay says:

09 Jul 2011 at 11:05 AM
Tim, I have been using a blog to highlight school happenings for a while now. Our school has moved to exploring the possibility of having parents subscribe to receive the newsletter, although they can already access a digital copy from the school website page. Your idea encourages me to think differently. We could well be gaining nothing from this endeavour and may be better off creating new ways of thinking about news coming to parents. Why do we need to have a weekly news set-up? In this digital day and age we can share "news" as soon as it happens, and in blog format it is easily searchable whenever the school community wish to access the information, even a year down the track..Thanks for the chance to rethink this! :)cheers

Princess E says:

16 Jul 2011 at 11:18 PM
I love what you have done with your Bloged and it has inspired me to keep going despite some issues I am having with it. It looks professional and visually appealing. Looking forward to the post on bloged. Thanks Tim Kiaora!

1:1 Learning Unconference 2011

Over 21/22 June 2011 the 1:1 Learning Unconference was held in Sydney and promoted to help NSW teachers implement the Digital Education Revolution in their schools. Although interested when I first heard about the event, I dismissed it as too expensive for school funds to cover considering the cost of transport and accommodation. But Ross Woolfe from the Lismore Education Office offered an invite which I was happy to jump at.

An unconference is participant-driven, with pre-event surveys determining what would be presented, and by whom. I was fortunate to be able to present:

• Showcase: Video Conferencing and Moodle
• Micro Learning Session: Painting Animation with Photoshop

The conveners, Ben Jones and Pip Cleaves, demonstrated the use of digital resources during registration and preparation, providing wikispace and cloud documents, sending SMS and emails to encourage and inspire, and encouraging discussion and interaction via twitter, liveblog and flicker.

A huge benefit from this event was the chance to meet some mentors face-to-face, and discuss ideas freely and fluidly. An atmosphere of sharing encompassed the venue, and participants moved between discussions, showcases, and micro learning sessions building new concepts and relationships.

Benefits:

• Pip Cleaves (DERNSW) and others demonstrated presentation format Pecha-Kucha – 20 slides at 20 seconds each
• Paul Ganderton (Sydney Boys High School) showed benefits of using Moodle blogs to encourage students to contribute and collaborate
• Glynis Jones (UTS) described how to use reflective blog to evaluate video conference learning from student viewpoint
• Matthew Kearney (UTS) expressed interest in demonstrating video conference learning with pre-service teachers
• Ben Jones (DERNSW) discussed the use of ePortfolios for scaffolding, aggregating, and archiving project work
• Cathie Howe (Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre) led a discussion with Alice Leung (Merrylands High School) describing the use of narrative and gaming psychology to motivate students (this can be implemented into an online learning environment like Moodle)
• Alisa Williams (Braidwood Central School) showcased Edmodo as a social media for distribution and communication within the classroom

On return to Lismore (via train due to grounded flights) a pecha-kucha outlining the benefits of the unconference was presented to Ross Woolfe. This will also be presented to Kadina High staff on 18-Jul-2011.

Downloads

• 2011 Unconference Pecha-Kucha (ZIP 3.7MB) - Powerpoint including notes
• pk20.gif - animated gif for 20 second countdown