All too often the accomplishments and everyday activities that occur in our schools go unnoticed by parents, the community, and staff within our district. Athletic and extracurricular activities are championed by local newspapers but those papers don't often set foot in the classroom and report on what our teachers and students are accomplishing on a daily basis.
Facebook is a great tool for getting information out to a mass audience but posts can often lack the necessary depth required to effectively share the details of a successful classroom project.
Teachers can share activities and ideas in greater detail by creating a classroom blog in Blogger. Not only can blogs be created on your laptop but they can be created with apps installed on your smartphone and iPad. Teachers can snap quick pictures and include them within their blog. Blogs are more permanent and less likely to get buried in a Facebook timeline. You can create a classroom blog by going to www.blogger.com and following the setup instructions.
Your blog can be shared with other teachers by posting the link in Google+ which can be done automatically when you post your blog. Facebook can also be used to promote your blog to parents and the community.
As a district, we use Facebook and Google+ to communicate ideas and promote accomplishments but more often than not the posts are linked to blogs which drive and keep a permanent record of those activities.
Blogs are a vital tool of our communication strategy as a district and can easily become an important communication tool in the classroom as well. If you wish to setup a blog and need help, please contact me.
