Why I Started A Blog

There is an interesting story about why, and how, I started blogging.

The Rock Hill School district was working on student attendance changes in 2001. A lot of parents complained to me that they never knew what was going on (when and what meetings were about). I promised that if they would give me their email address, I'd let them know what I knew. From this beginning, I tried to manage a very large email base which became more and more difficult. The address list was so long that many  filters would treat it as spam and the message wouldn't get through.

In 2007, Rock Hill Schools Superintendent Lynn Moody asked if I would look into blogging as a way for the York County School Boards to collaborate together (this turned out not to be feasible). At about the same time, the American School Board  Journal had an article suggesting that all boards and school administrators should try blogging as a communication tool and to keep current with the latest web 2.0 tools.

So, with no real computer skills, I took the plunge and signed up for a free account from Blogger.com and invited my email list to subscribe. The blog offered several improvements over the newsletter - better pictures, web links, and for those who don't like to get email or give out their email address, they could just go to the site to see what had been posted.

So, the blog is about 3 years old now and, in addition to district events, I've added  other education related information. Some of you may have also noticed that I might post information I don't particularly agree with myself. There is a madness to this. The old saying  there is more than one way to skin a cat is true. I hope everyone who reads my blog is a critical thinker - I expect you to be open to new ideas and come to your own conclusions - plus - without differing ideas - how does collaboration ever take place - and without that - how do revolutionary changes ever take place?

There will be several follow-up posts to this one (How do I get the other education information, what about facebook and Twitter, and stepping on toes). But let me say, I am not a computer whiz. If I can do this, anyone can. If your school, PTA, and/or Booster Group is not using the web to communicate the wonderful things you are doing, give me a call or email - I'd be glad to help you get started.

Jim