AN OPEN LETTER TO SUPERINTENDENTS AND PRINCIPALS: YOU SHOULD BLOG.

I thought this posting at  The PrincipalsPage.com Blog  was worth a repeat. So much of it is true.
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Superintendents and Principals should blog.

Well that is not exactly what I mean. Plus I feel like I am repeating myself.

They don’t have to necessarily blog, but they do need to keep up with the technological times.

It is almost 2009 after all.

You can’t be a leader in education without leading. And you can’t lead by using pencil and paper when everyone behind you is Twittering. Or Plurking. Or doing 50 other things that I don’t completely understand (yet… I am working on it slowly but surely).

How can we expect students and teachers to stay current, when we are set in our ways?

If we don’t want to get outside of our comfort zone, how can we expect others to tackle the changes and challenges in technology?

How can we make financial judgments on what is good for the school district when we don’t understand the tools being purchased?

How can we tell technology directors that have to block certain websites when we have no idea what the sites are and why they are being used?

How can we let ourselves be considered old, out of date, out of touch, closed minded, and well just really old?

Aren’t we risking looking ignorant when we stand up in front of teachers and say we expect them to use technology?

And then we don’t?

Aren’t we risking looking even more ignorant when we evaluate teachers on using technology and yet we struggle with email?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying every administrator should be a tech geek (a term that I use with love, not with judgment …after all, my wife is the biggest geek I know, and I love her dearly… yes, she wrote the last 15 words).

I am saying that we need to put in the time to advance ourselves if we want everyone around us to be taking these same small steps.

In Open Letter Part 2 (or the Deuce as the hip kids will surely call it), I will tackle the sure fire excuses that administrators will send me (if they email): I’m too busy, if I had a blog no one would read it, I don’t want my thoughts on that internet thingy, and of course the very popular Blah.. blah... blah... blah... blah... blah.

This is a big subject, so I can’t change the administrative mindset myself. This is going to take all of us.

And just one blog won’t cut it. I may be looking at a series here. Possibly even a manifesto.

But I have time. Lots and lots of time.

And cold hard cash. Actually, this part is a lie. I have don’t have a lot of money, just a bunch of change in my desk drawer (mostly pennies).

But I am willing to spend it if I have to. Although I don’t really want to because that is my morning chocolate milk money.

So I will stick to logic.

And if that doesn’t work, I will move on to Phase 2… guilt. And if that doesn’t do the trick, I may invest in frickin' sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their frickin' heads (I do love Dr. Evil from Austin Powers).

So it starts here.

Bombard your administrator with this first blog (in what may become an ongoing series… unless of course I get distracted but some other issue).

We can change them. We must change them. We have to do it for the kids.

Wow, I just had an Obama moment there.