I have an MA in Information and Learning Technologies, and I used to teach technology elective classes, so I feel that I have a good amount of experience with blogging and the idea of using blogs to communicate with a wide audience. I have a library blog for our school that I maintain, and I used to also teach a blogging class, so I helped students manage their own personal blogs and learn the key skills of website design and online communication.
I think that a school leader would find blogging a very effective way to communicate with many stakeholders in the school community. The multimedia aspect of blogging allows a leader to communicate through words, pictures, videos, and infographics in a really dynamic and up-to-date way. Blogs can be read on multiple devices, which makes it accessible to many members of a community. Additionally, it can be updated in seconds, which makes it constantly edit-able and update-able.
Barriers of blogs exist in getting your users to regularly use and check the blog. Communication to key stakeholders about the blog, how often it will be updated, etc., is a key piece of having a blog. Additionally, some individuals in our school community still don't have consistent access to the Internet. Many of our students come from multi-lingual or monolingual non-English speaking families, and so this might also present a barrier when using a blog. The opposite side of this is that some blogs have add-ons to translate the page from one language to another, so it may be a barrier, but may also break down some barriers. I think it all depends on the administrators intention, how frequently they post, and how they communicate with stakeholders to place value in checking the blog.
Finally, a leader who uses technology and a blog to communicate and share school news, shows that he/she values education as a tool for learning and communication. According to the Dept. of Education and Educational Technology, when a leader uses technology in their practice, "They model tolerance for risk and experimentation and create a culture of trust and innovation" ("Reimagining the role", 2018). Teachers will be more likely to risk-take and innovate if the leader of a school models and values this behavior.
Reference
U.S. Department of Education. (2017). Reimagining the role of technology in education: 2017 national education technology plan update. Retrieved from https://tech.ed.gov/netp/
You raised some interesting drawbacks of blogs that I hadn't considered.
ReplyDeleteThey are only effective if people are accessing them regularly. I haven;t used a blog as a way to notify stakeholders. How are people notified when a blog has been updated? Do they get an email or some other type of notification?
The first comment is mine. Not sure why it shows up as unkown
ReplyDeleteThanks for your blog post Liz. I'm not sure whether the rest of your colleagues are more familiar with blogs than me? This is my first course in which our discussion used blogs, rather than the traditional discussion forum.
ReplyDeleteBut that being aside, thanks for posting and sharing your thoughts with us. I especially noted your comment, "Finally, a leader who uses technology and a blog to communicate and share school news, shows that he/she values education as a tool for learning and communication.".
You make a great point.
Dr. Brown