1. Blogs, Videos, and Pictures – Oh My!
Eric Sprung – Principal
Birch Meadow Elementary, Reading, MA
Brian Middleton-Cox – Principal
Woodville School, Wakefield, MA
Blue Ribbon Conference
Reading, MA
April 15-16, 2010
Prior to presentation
OPEN to show RSS Open CNN.com
Polleverywhere.com
Open questions

2. About Us Eric Sprung Brian Middleton-Cox
Taught 3rd and 4th grade and served as assistant principal in Fairfax County, Virginia
Served as Principal in Burlington and Reading, MA
In the past year expanded uses GOOGLE READER/RSS FEEDS/BLOG/PHOTO STORY/FLIP VIDEO
Brian Middleton-Cox
Taught 2nd, 3rd, 4th grades in Massachusetts
Served as Principal in Wakefield, MA
In this past year expanded the use of GOOGLE READER/BLOG/VIDEOS

3. Overview of Session PollEverywhere.com Blogs for Educational Leaders
Keeping Current
Resources

4. Polleverywhere.com www.polleverywhere.com
Free instant data collection with graph
Responses to your poll can be collected via web link, text message, twitter
Insert your poll into a PowerPoint presentation
Up to 30 responses free – you can upgrade and downgrade your plan depending on your needs

5. Polleverywhere.com question
Don’t forget: You can copy-paste this slide into other presentations, and move or resize the poll.
Press F5 or enter presentation mode to view the poll
If you like, you can use this slide as a template for your own voting slides. You might use a slide like this if you feel your audience would benefit from the picture showing a text message on a phone.

6. Blogging for Educational Leaders
Sharing News and Events
Progress Monitoring
Status Alerts
Marketing
Public Relations
Community Building
Customer Relations
Branding
Creating “Customer Evangelists”
Thought Leadership
Advocacy
Replacing the School Website

7. Examples of Educational Blogs
Examples of Blogs
Mr. Sprung’s Blog
Mr. Middleton-Cox’s Blog
Superintendent of Burlington Public Schools
Principal of Burlington High School
Angela Maiers
Will Richardson – Blogging in Schools

8. Blogging Platforms
Blogger
Edublogs
Blogmeister
WordPress
21Classes

9. Starting Your Blog in 10 Minutes or Less
Getting Started

10. Adding Pictures and Videos
Simple Pictures
Videos – Flip cameras
Use flip cameras and create a video to imbed in your blog
Photo Stories – download photostory3
Free Music for your photo story – freeplaymusic.com

11. ClustrMaps
View ClustrMaps to add a map that shows the geographic locale of visitors to your blog.

12. READERS AND FEEDS RSS FEEDS
RSS FeedBurner - you’ll likely see the standard RSS icon or the letters RSS
RSS: Select your feed readers - Common READERS include: NewzCrawler and FeedDemon.  For Mac users, NewsFire and NetNewsWire are popular choices.  Google Reader works well on any platform, and most web browsers, like Firefox, Safari, and Opera, offer built-in RSS functions
FEEDS will allow you to add links to , favorites, or a READER
READER UPDATES
Cut and Paste URL into Reader

13. Assessment

14. Contact Us Eric Spring Principal Birch Meadow School Reading, MA
Brian Middleton-Cox
Principal
Woodville School
Wakefield, MA