os6_americasouthb

Blogging and video blogging Led by Ilyssa Frey of The Meadowbrook School of Weston

Issues: Getting heads to blog. Creating discussion and comments.

Flint school aggregates staff blog posts. About 10-12 faculty members blog as part of their professional persona; no parent responses but they are getting eyeballs.

Twitter might be a great intro to blogging - a "gateway drug" for blogging. Tweet blog posts with a question -- easier to answer/respond to than on the web.

Comments might not be the judge of a quality post. Many schools have popular posts without many comments.

Video blogging

Should be authentic, easy to create video. Have alumni or students help create video, give credit in video and build community. Getting help takes the edge off the time required to edit. Final cut pro x is cheap and a good step up from iMovie. Find YouTube, lynda.com or student help learning editing.

Flint focuses on uncut, more raw video posts. One channel for polished videos and another for quick videos.

Imovie on iPad or iPhone is an easy way to edit.

Policies on the subject matter. Need to focus on having many voices heard on the blog rather than a few. Need to walk the line between the flavor of the school and opinions that might generate controversy.

Getting comments - make logging in as easy as possible to help reduce the friction. Blogs for trips - faculty development, field trips.

Can pull multiple twitter feeds into a list that feeds a widget.