Working with Scribd…

I have a presentation coming up on Thursday about using social media, and thought I’d root around in Scribd to see how it all works. I’ve heard a lot about how easy is makes work and blogging. The first thing I did was upload the PDF of an article I wrote last year that recently won an Excellence in Writing Award from the National School PR Association, and just accomplished that. It means my article is now online for everyone to see, complete with tags. But I also noticed an “embed code” for the document, which allows you to place it on your blog. So let’s see if this works! Very cool!

NSPRA Award Winning Article – Upload a Document to Scribd

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Bloggers Unite on Nov. 10th

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve signed up to participate in the Bloggers Unite initiative on Nov. 10. This worldwide initiative will benefit Refugees United with information, which leads to empowerment.

Refugees United is a non-profit organization that helps refugees relocate family and friends through the use of the internet. It provides refugees with an anonymous forum to reconnect with missing family members. By registering with nicknames, scars, former locations and other markers only identifiable to family and close friends, everyone can remain ‘invisible’ to all but their relatives.

The Refugees United search engine is the first of its kind. Visit Refugees United to see how it works and to learn more about the work that Refugees United is doing. You can also read the Refugees United blog.

Here’s what Bloggers Unite says about this effort:

It is very difficult to reach refugees in remote areas. By advancing the power of blogs, bloggers are effectively placed in a position to fulfill a job that could not be done without the power of the internet and the skills that bloggers possess to quickly and effectively raise the necessary awareness and aid about critical social causes. We hope you will join us, as together we harness the expression of the blogosphere to reunite family members who have been separated from each other.

Bloggers who participate will blog about any refugee issue to help shed light on the plight of refugees and the hardships they endure around the world. If you have a blog, join the effort.

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Teens Improve Their Writing When They Blog

This is fascinating to someone who is a writing “semi-purist,” like myself.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently explored the link between formal writing and the writing that teens do when they email one another, text each other and write for the Internet. What they found was that blogging is helping teens become more prolific writers. Hurray!
I know this is true of my own son, who maintains his own blog, maintains a Facebook account and yes – writes for the college newspaper. All of that spells one thing – plenty of practice.
The April 24 survey showed that 47 percent of teen bloggers write outside of school several times a week or more, compared to 33 percent of teens who don’t maintain blogs. More than half of both groups, although the number is higher for bloggers, believe that writing is important to their success in life.

Duke University writing professor Bradley Hammer told eSchool News that blog writing can be better than the writing style students learn in school, or SAT-style writing.

“In real ways, blogging and other forms of virtual debate actually foster the very types of intellectual exchange, analysis, and argumentative writing that universities value,” he wrote in an op-ed piece last August.

The full report is available on the Pew Internet site.

More Reading:

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I Like This Blog…

I like this blog maintained by Woodbury, N.J., Superintendent of Schools Joseph Jones, an honest effort to keep constituents, community members and parents up to speed on what that District is doing. It really is a solid blog, with many posts noted in its archive (in the right-hand column) and lots of variety. There’s testing information, great kids, and generally news-worthy and helpful information. Superintendent Jones manages to do what many blog owners have a tough time doing — making entries on a regular basis. This is the key to a successful blog and the only thing that will breathe life into it. I’ve looked around at dozens of school blogs and have noted that some have no entries since September. It was a good idea at the time, wasn’t it? It’s hard when life gets in the way, but posting to a blog can take less than 30 minutes, and perhaps another 15 minutes linking it to social bookmarking sites.

Using WordPress or Blogger as an eNewsletter

Here’s a great way to communicate with your constituents, via an eNewsletter created on a blog platform. Carol Franks-Randall, Superintendent of Schools in Elmsford, NY, who’s always ahead of the curve when it comes to communicating, created a WordPress blog, “Excellence in Elmsford,” two years ago that she now emails to community members as an eNewsletter. She has turned off the comments, making the blog her own creation over which she has total control. It’s a great way to keep in touch, control the message and even circumvent the local press by managing her own news. It’s a great idea for any school district struggling with public image or dealing with an antagonistic or absent local press.

All About School Communications…

…at least I hope that’s what I can offer in my blog, which will be about new and old tools for anyone in the education/communications field. I’ll begin by explaining that I have started, interrupted and abandoned numerous blogs in the past, each one born from good intentions and a bit of writing-mania. I’m a former journalist and current public information officer for public schools in New York, so I simply like to write. But I’ve also learned a lot in recent years about using a variety of tools to communicate better with the public about the things they hold most dear — schools, students, teachers, taxes, and funding for education. I hope this blog helps anyone strapped with the task of communicating with their stakeholders about public education. Let’s try this together and see what pops up.

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