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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