Talk about giving birth…

The best part is right now, a mere 12 hours after launch, I already have five e-mails from teachers wanting to help develop the site. YES!!! My little 7-minute overview of the power of the read/write Web to our ENTIRE faculty (all 250+) seems to have sparked some interest.

I’ll be making sites all day…as long as the 7,453 other initiatives we put into place this summer don’t all crash and burn on this, the first day back for kids.

Fingers are severely crossed…

Oy…what a four days. But the end is in sight. For anyone interested, here’s a peek at the new Weblog/Website I’ve been building…still some work to go, but it’s close.

Hopefully, regular blogging will resume here shortly.

Met with my superintendent last week and he is sufficiently satisfied with the results of the four site pilot that we’re going to expand it to 10 and reevaluate at the end of the school year. The goal is still to make the changeover to the new site at some point late in the summer. I know that I’m jumping through more hoops than some other folks, but to be honest, on some level I’m glad we’re going slowly. It’s giving me a chance to wrap my brain around the whole process and how it will end up working.

Most of the departmental sites have been created and we’re slowly turning over the content. The library sites are really looking good, and the librarians are getting the hang of it. The one in charge of the Book Nook is my “Blogger of the Year” so far, and the other librarians are starting to update the main site more regularly. I’ve really not done much in terms of pushing them; they’re coming to it on their own. And on the athletics front, the admin assistant is busy udating content and talking about how much parents love the site. Very cool.

The best news is that another teacher is teaching the Weblogs class this summer, and she’s even offering an advanced class to show how to incorporate multimedia and do some html tweaks. I’m thrilled, because it brings legitimacy to the “program.” So, the blogs are spreading…
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Just a bit of an update on the Website project. It’s still a slow go, and I’ve pretty much taken over responsibility for the content that is posted until we get a better handle on the type of work flow we’re talking about. Right now, with about a dozen sites up for business, the flow is pretty light, maybe a post a day (not including the daily announcement type stuff.) And to be honest, I have a feeling in the end when we get all 50-60 sites up, it probably won’t be any more than five or six a day. I’d love it to be more, (so I can crank up the RSS end of things,) but as I said, it’s taking a while for people to get used to it. On a positive note, I have had more and more people nibbling. And I think inevitably we’ll get a pretty good participation rate. But in reality, these baby steps are letting me work all of the kinks out and get everything clear in terms of templates, access, etc. I’m still loving the design, as are most others, and I’ve created the Communications Dept. site as a model for other department supervisors to look at. That’s the next big task, the creation and conversion of all of the academic content. We’ll see what happens after that.
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Tom is taking the blog by the horns and has created a site to “hash out a vision for the post Weblog school Website.” Here’s his intro:

Those of us who run school websites and keep personal weblogs are naturally interested in bringing the advantages of weblogs into our schools. Setting up a classroom with Blogger, or managing school news with Movable Type or Frontier have proven to be good starting points, but also have demonstrated to us that schools have unique needs that will require a special set of modifications to get the most out of the possibilites opened up by weblogging.

This could be pretty fun if Tom’s going to take on the development piece of it (no pressure…) Might be a way to build something that will meet most if not all of our needs in one package.

Was cruising the UserLand site trying to find an answer to why Contributing Editors don’t seem able to edit their own posts once they are published, and I came across this message from Lawrence Lee quoting Michael Breidenstein, the Director of Instructional Technology for the Rock Island School District in Illinois:

“We have found Manila to be the ideal way for teachers to publish web pages. It has caught on in Rock Island and now we have Manila sites for our athletics, organizations, administration, schools, teachers and alumni. The sites vary since almost every site has a different managing editor. We are just starting to see teachers take their sites to the next level by having students as members. I realize our site design isn’t the fanciest, but we have found Manila to be the best way to have teachers take control of the content on their sites. Our Manila workshops continue to be our most popular. All workshops are optional and the Manila classes have been attended by everyone – school board members, support staff, teachers, students, alumni and even the superintendent have learned to publish web content with Manila!”

Key to me is the “every site has a different managing editor” line, exactly what we are working toward here. I sent Michael an e-mail hoping to pick his brain.

James asks a legitemate question in response to my post on Friday, I guess. “Quelle point?” I know what he’s saying, that trying to work under the restrictions that my district is imposing is kind of taking away all the good things that Weblogs make available like commenting and free expression and all that other stuff. But I guess I bristle a bit at the suggestion that because that’s the reality we should just stick to the same old paradigm for creating school Websites which usually entails the almighty Webmaster cranking out static pages in Dreamweaver or Front Page creating the same old pretty monotonous product that most school sites currently have. Yeah, I know we’re not gonna be “blogging” here, at least not at the outset. But we are going to be enlisting 40 or 50 more people in the process. And we are going to be introducing Weblogs to teachers and students and parents which will most likely generate greater use in the classroom. And we’re going to be showcasing the best practices of our teachers and students. And in doing so we’re going to be able to communicate a heckuva lot more effectively with the people in our community by using RSS and group notification and more. At least in theory. And while the process may seem cumbersome and restrictive, the excitement that many teachers are showing at the potential tells me it might just work.

This is my reality and the reality of most public schools in America. There are concerns about how we present ourselves to our publics. There is unease with letting people express themselves freely on a district owned Web space. We want to protect our students who are, after all, still just kids. These concerns are legitimate. It is not the perfect fit for pure blogging. But so what?

The point is that no one knows that Weblogs can’t be a great tool for educators even without the interaction. And I can tell you I’ll never get to where I think we can get without proving this step first. So, I’m going to stay the course…

One of the reasons why I think Manila might be the best suited software out there for building a school Website is the flexibility and functions that it has behind the scenes. Now I don’t know about MT or the other open source alternatives, but I’m not sure how many other Weblog packages could facilitate a workable solution to the content review requirements that my superintendent has asked for. I think Manila has.

What I’ve been struggling with is finding a balance between the districts desire to ensure quality content on the site in terms of appropriateness and correctness and a process that will not be so cumbersome that teachers or staff members wouldn’t be willing to post to the site. With the help of my redesign team, I think we’ve come up with something that will work.

When someone creates a news post on any of the dozens of Weblogs we’ll have running, we’ll configure that site to send notifications to that person’s supervisor and to our Public Information Officer who can review the content right in the e-mail and reply to the author with approval or changes. Once the author receives those approvals, she goes back and publishes the post. When someone creates a story on a site, notification will be sent as usual, but the author won’t link the stories to anywhere (since that’s pretty much the only way anyone will know they were created) until she gets approvals back. For now, all commenting will be turned off, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

The teachers on the team all said this wasn’t unreasonable, and the principal and PIO felt the district’s concerns would be met by this process. I’m sure it’s going to need tweaking, but for now, I think we can move forward. And the best news is that I’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback on the look and feel of the pages. (And believe it or not, yesterday a school webmaster from a nearby district called me out of the blue and said, and I quote, “my board wants our site to look like your site. How do we do it?” Looks like I may be sending Bryan some more business.)

Another step on the road…did a presentation to a couple of board members last night on how things are going with the Website. (Found out one of them is the mother of a student in my class. Surprise!) I think it’s safe to say that everyone understands the process, everyone likes the concept and the design, and everyone is worried about how to review what gets posted. It is THE huge discussion I’m having right now, and it is THE last obstacle (I think) to full implementation of the site. (I’ve been struggling with this for about a month now.) I’m meeting with my Redesign Team next week to hopefully roll up our sleeves and talk through it. Since all we’re going to allow at this point is informational posting, 95% of what we’re talking about here is correctness and not appropriateness. So, I think I can make the case that if we define the type of content that we can post, clearly define the standards for that content, and clearly spell out the review process for each site, we should be good to move forward.

I hope.

I have been able to make the separation between Weblogs as Website and Weblogs as instructional tool, and that’s important. That last one is much messier, and I’ll tackle the particulars of that later.

Meanwhile, Pam has been hard at work on her own Weblogs as Website project, and I’m happy to say she’s got it up and running. Looks great, and it’s creating a nice feel for her school district. Quality. I hope when we get ours up and running we can say the same thing.
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I’ve been building some sites using the new theme that Bryan Bell created for me and I’m liking it more and more. Luckily, it seems, so do people at my school. I was concerned that just using one base theme for all the pages on the site would be too repetitive. But the flexibility that Bryan built into the banner has made it easy to personalize each site with just a little bit of elbow grease. Some examples are the library site, athletics, ed tech committee, Chinese Honor Society, and referendum. None of these sites are “live” yet, meaning if you didn’t have the link you wouldn’t find it from our site. If you take a look at want to leave me some feedback, I’d love to hear it.

I feel the momentum starting to grow. Yesterday I met with the teacher who directs the marching band and music program, and he brought with him a list of things he wanted on the Website. Audio and video files, music files of other types, ability to have is own e-mail group, student creation of content…you get the idea. It was like that old commercial where the guy kept saying “We can do that.” He kept saying, “Cool” or “Wow” or “Really?” And the thing is that he’s one of those “key communicators” who will get up there in front of the staff at the unveiling later this year and talk about how cool his part of the site is. Next week I’ll post a link to his banner…

Bryan Bell has used his Manila magic to whip up a new theme for me that I’m going to use for the school Web log as Website. (Pay no attention to the content as I’m just playing with this site…) I think it looks pretty great, and it has some unique features that Bryan was able to build in for more flexibility. The background banner image is easy to swap out, the right hand column is a module that is easily edited as are the two modules in the left hand column, and the footer. The main nav bar at the top is a universal image for all pages on the site so if I edit it, it updates on every page.

This comes pretty close to solving the personalization limits that Manila has…I know my students are all trying to find ways to make their own sites more their own. This ought to make that a lot easier. I’m very psyched to start some serious building of the site…FINALLY!
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I presented about our Website redesign to a small group of parents at our Family School Council meeting last night and the reception was, shall I say, very enthusiastic. I showed our principal’s Web log and some of the other sites we’re building, gave them the overview on the syndication aspect of it, and even got commitments from a couple of them to try out the subscription form that I have set up. One parent reported that her daughter “absolutely loves” the way the Web log is being used in her Sociology class, and the whole group was really positive about the distributed content creation model that we are moving toward. When I talked about the content/knowledge management aspect of this, even the principal and another supervisor in attendance seemed to more fully understand the potential. (The supervisor, in fact, wants me to come and present to her department next week.)

Slowly but surely, the buzz is growing around here about Web logs, and I think the pieces are starting to fall in place. We still need some design issues straightened out, and I need to map the current site more clearly so I can plan the conversion effectively. But the best part is that the more I talk it, the better I get at figuring out how to explain it all. And last night’s reaction did much to affirm the philosophy and the process.
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Ran across this article and it makes some great points about the distributed content creation model for school Websites and the potential headaches that go along with it. But what I found even more interesting was the premise that the way to give teachers the power to create and post content on the site is to use a course management package like Blackboard or webCT. Now I know that CMS give you a lot more bang in general, but it costs a lot more buck. I think I heard somewhere that the full install of Blackboard can run upwards of $50,000. And correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you have to shell out some money for a staff person to run the thing, too? I’m not knocking what Blackboard or webCT can do…it’s great. But I can’t imagine a school disctrict looking to be able to create a web presence for their teachers and students not picking a powerful, $299 a year, content management capable system like Manila every day of the week…if only they knew it was out there.

Forget all that stuff I said about moving too fast. I’ve decided I’m going to create one Web log a day as a surprise “gift” to various clubs and teams and teachers. Today’s winner is the Student Council. I’ll let the advisers know it’s there and have them let me know if they want to see how it all works. Next, let’s see…how about the Girls Soccer Team? And then, maybe Ed the math teacher for his Let’s Make a Deal idea. We’ve already got over 100 sites working, mostly personal student sites. But two days ago, Chinese Honor Society started up, and I keep hoping that as people see what’s up, they’ll want their own. Now I really have to make a couple more templates…
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One of the things I’ve noticed this week as I’ve been going around to some of the key stakeholders here is that my explanation or pitch concerning this idea is getting more and more focused. It almost feels like a politician on the stump, trying out phrases, seeing what works, taking a refined version to the next audience. Most of the time I just kind of hit on a word or a phrase that seems to click, and one that has really worked is this idea that we’re moving to a “distributed creation of content model”. Used to be that all content for our Website was approved by the public information officer who sent it to the Webmaster who put it online. (Which, of course, is why so little content was every created.) In this new model, the pipe to posting information is open for those that have relevant content and are positions to take responsibility for it.

It’s a whole different approach that has been facilitated by Web logs, obviously. And I can see that this is going to necessitate a huge change in the thinking of most schools out there if they’re even to consider this model themselves. This approach does pose some potential problems. The more open the system, the higher the likelihood of misuse. If teachers or advisers or coaches aren’t vigilant about logins and passwords and such, and if they don’t monitor student sites under their supervision, unacceptable content is inevitably going to find it’s way online. (BTW, I think this is one area where RSS is so important, simply because it wouldn’t be difficult to create redundant levels of review without making it awfully time consuming.)

I’ve said it before, but I am fortunate to work at a school where I can experiment and push the boundaries before I have the hard data that most changes of this type would require. And all of the people who I have shown this idea to think the model makes sense and is a positive step. But ultimately, there is going to have to be evidence that the rewards of Web logs are worth the risk. Seb noted the other day a paper that had been presented on Manila as CMS, but there really is little if any empirical data that suggests what we’re doing is actually changing things for the better, enhancing student learning. It’s all gut, still. But it’s a model that I think appeals to most people now that the tool is available for it to work. Content creation is no longer the purview of a few “geeks” who can code and design and make pretty pages. We can all get in the game now. How well we play it remains to be seen.

I took my Web logs as Website show to the Director of Curriculum and, later, the principal, today to make sure they had a clear sense of where this is all heading. Now that the RSS piece is usable (though still in production), I can at least articulate and show how the grand vision for this works and looks. A couple of observations…

I have a feeling that once this starts rolling it’s going to be hard to stop, save a technical disaster. The DoC and I were joined by another teacher who had at least two great ideas for Web logs in mind by the time he left. And the RSS stuff really blew him away. The DoC compared it to that old hair coloring commercial where “She’ll tell two friends, and they’ll tell two friends, and so on, and so on…” And he was really processing the content management piece of this. At one point he said “So if all of the committees and departments I’m overseeing kept a Web log, I could just crank up my news reader in the morning and see whatever it is they’ve been up to.” Yup. “And I can even search that content for any key ideas I want to track.” Yup.

With the principal, I made her a Web log before I sat down with her. She loved it. Her secretary immediately signed up and started thinking about what type of content they could generate. And again, the whole subscription aspect just amazed them. They’re going to get me some parents to try the whole thing out on. (I’m probably going to present to the School-Family Council at some point.)

So, what I’m working through now is the speed of implementation. I don’t want to slow down any enthusiasm that might be building for this, but I also don’t want to get too far ahead of things in terms of design and navigation and such. I always expected parts of the new site to go live on the old site before the final transition was finished in the spring, but I think I really need to start thinking about the best way to bring these online.
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While there are many projects on my plate right now (wait ’til Monday for a pretty cool collaboraton announcement…) none is bigger than the transition of our school Website from a traditional one person is the keeper of the kingdom format to anyone with relevant content can have digital paper space with Manila format. I’m not sure that I’ve written much about my plan of attack here, but I’m at the point where I’m starting to put the hard sell on some of the key people at my school with the hopes that they’ll be the ones to carry the ball to the rest of the staff. I’m really concerned that this not be seen as “Will’s Idea,” so I’m trying to tread that thin line between getting us where I think we ought to go without being the driver of that bus. It’s tough.

But I think we’re off to a good start. The Website Redesign Team met for the first time on Wednesday. I gave them the “we have an opportunity to do something radically different and create a model for others to follow” pep talk, and then we started thinking about the philosophy we wanted to have for this site. Here’s the draft we came up with:

“The Hunterdon Central Website should be a warm, friendly, human space that highlights the work of students and teachers, provides collaborative opportunities, connects the school and community, and serves as the first, best marketing and informational tool for the district.”

I think I like that…a lot. Especially the part about collaboration because to me, that means Manila. That means a model where many add to the site, not just one. That’s the way it should be, I think. And I that connecting the school and community part isn’t going to happen with a traditional site. How many times have you seen ‘Discuss’ on a school Website?

Now I know this “model” creates the potential for all sorts of problems and headaches…it’s scary, believe me. I’m putting a lot of faith in this software and this still untested idea. But I just keep saying that we’ll deal with whatever comes up. What I see in my brain will probably not come to fruition for any number of reasons…at least not as quickly as I want it to. But the pieces are starting to come together. What an interesting trip this could be…
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