Top six ways to use a blog at your school:

Before I move ahead and give you 6 great ways to use a blog, I want to be sure you know what a blog is!  A Blog is a "Web Log"  which is an on line journal or newsletter.  A blog is a great way to communicate with your constituents.  Near the end of the article we will give you our favorite pick for creating a FREE blog so read on....

1.      Create a blog instead of a weekly newsletter. You will still be able to print out the newsletter for the few families that are not able to access the blog (If you choose the right template or make the following changes to the template you choose …http://ideas.arikfr.com/make-your-blog-printer-friendly.html.)

a.       Benefits of a blog instead of print newsletter

                                                  i.      The articles and info that you publish will be available in the archives until you delete it so families can use it as a great reference

                                                ii.      You can decide to allow parents to comment on topics (and you can decide whether you want to “publish” the responses or not

                                              iii.      You are not Dependant on the mail service or the “child delivery” service to make sure the newsletter gets home

                                              iv.      Each parent can subscribe to the newsletter  (or better yet add an RSS feed to your blog and then people will be alerted whenever you add something!)  I suspect that in most families, one parent typically is the newsletter reader.  A blog will allow each parent to subscribe and stay informed instead of just the person who reads the mail or “empties” the backpack. 

2.      Use your blog to showcase your students' work.  A blog format is perfect for posting kids' stories, poems, art and even some reports. 

3.      Use your blog to “educate” and “inspire” your parents.  Great topics might be:

a.       How teachers incorporate faith into the classroom

b.      How to respond to kids' comments like “But everyone is doing it…”

4.      Create a page on your blog that contains all the details of the events and activities that happen in your school throughout the year.  This will be indispensable for new parents.   In a regular school newsletter there is not room for the details, but with a blog, you can easily create a page with all the details about an event (Including the obvious Who, What Where, When but also adding the details that “old timers take for granted” but that newcomers have no idea about…  With the blog format you can simply link to the details page whenever appropriate so those who need to know more can visit that page.  Here are 2 “new family” stories that would have been different with more information:

a.       I remember back several years when a new family joined our school community.  They were trying to get involved in all aspects of the school and kept running into “hidden rules” that caused them to run into awkward moments and made it difficult for them to feel truly welcome.  For example, they were the only family that brought their kids to the “host and hostess” dinner at the beginning of the school year.  None of the information in the newsletters explained the WHO carefully.   They were gracious about their error, and people told them not to feel badly, but, the fact is, both the new parents and the kids felt completely out of place!   

b.      The first year that our kids attended their school, there was a school program that started at 7:00 PM.  We arrived at about 10 minutes to 7 and found that there were no seats left in the auditorium.  The “hidden rules”  of the community were such that the parents arrived at 6:30 and to find their seats.  As a new parent, we already felt conspicuous and arriving to a gym where we could not find a place to sit, made us feel even more out of place. 

5.      Start an on line book study on your blog. Encourage all your constituents to read a certain book.  You can have a discussion about the book on the blog.  Here is one suggestion for a book that every parent (and teacher) should read.  Kid CEO by Ed Young (http://www.creativepastors.com/product_1017)

6.      Add a picture gallery to your blog. If you upload pictures on a regular basis, you will get lots of parents (and students) checking out the blog on a regular basis! 

WORD PRESS IS OUR CHOICE for creating a free blog.  There are 2 options for getting a FREE blog; Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org.   Here is a VERY brief summary of the differences. Click here to get a more detailed overview:

WordPress.com (see features at  http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=7015&page&replies=3)  is where you can create a Free WordPress blog which is hosted on the WordPress.com site. (That means you can do it without having technical expertise and you don’t need to even have to pay for hosting – but there are some limitations – including perhaps making it printer friendly. )

WordPress.org (see features at http://wordpress.org/about/features/)  is the open source site for WordPress where you can download the program, read/contribute to the documentation, download plugins and themes, get help in these forums....all for "Free" – but you need a bit more technical expertise and a web host where you can host a SQL database and uses PHP.

If you need help setting up a wordpress.org blog, we would be glad to help you!  Give us a jingle at 800-395-8556 or email info@welcomingcommunity.com.  It should not be more than $100 to set up the whole site and pay for the first year of hosting as well as your own URL.  Your recurring annual fees would be the hosting fee (probably less than $10 a month) and the renewal of your domain name ($15 a year).  Other than that, you should not have any recurring fees.   

Making sure your template is print friendly is something that takes a bit of technical expertise.  We can do the technical work for you for a $30 one time fee if you need us to.  Give us a call or send an email.