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