School Blogging
(Via David Fletcher)
Far be it from me to suggest that blogging will overtake the world, but I do maintain that a more open form of communication will be something that will have a big impact on society.
Seeing a school starting its own blog moves that ball a few yards down the field. While the site content is nothing particularly out of the ordinary from what might go up on a more standard site, and comments are disabled ... this does advance the possibility that more and more people will find posting online far easier in the past. Back in my professional web designing days, the fear was that WYSIWYG editors like FrontPage would get progressively better and make web publishing something that the typical secretary can do, as opposed to the highly paid tech geek. Instead, CMS tools like MovableType run interference on that one.
While there's nothing particularly earthshattering about this site, I'll remind anyone that I also posited on this site about a year ago on the effects that blogs might have on politics if only someone were to actually use one. Even rattled off an email to an unknown candidate from Vermont on the topic. But don't blame me for his rise.
The next step in the evolution of sites like this for schools should be equally interesting since it could go a long way towards giving parents insight into how well or ineffective their schools are, in fact, operating. Putting content production into the hands of those closer to the action instead of paid PR types will also be worth watching out for.