Adventures in After School Learning Blog

-By Mike DeBritz on Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Many after school directors understand the importance of getting the word out and promoting what they do with kids everyday.  With social media kicking into high gear and a large percentage of parents participating in one form or another, new media seems like a logical place to build a presence.

As much as Facebook has moved into the forefront, many organizations maintain a presence on the web or with a dedicated section on their partner’s website.  Sometimes this can be problematic depending on the partner, because changes may need to go through channels.  If you’re trying to get the word out for a timely event, you may miss the window.

Stay Close to Home

Many internet consultants advise that even with all these forms of new media, a website should still be maintained as your home base.  The site may have more static items like your mission, what schools you serve, contact information and such.  

If your website can accommodate a blog, a blog is one of the easiest ways to put out timely updates, post pictures of recent events and build a following.  Through easy tools like RSS (Real Simple Syndication), parents can subscribe to your updates and not have to visit your site to get the latest news.  

I’ve written in the past about simply using a blog platform as an after school website.  This can be as easy as typing in word and a great activity for high school students.  Having students run a blog provides practical work experience in seeing how many parents they can reach through this medium.  

Free and Easy

As with all things technological there’s always something new on the scene. With the amount of investment in better internet access and greater bandwidth, many Web 2.0 companies are addressing the unique needs of educators by making web-building tools easier to access for non-technical users.  

Enter Weebly, a relatively new player that is gaining some ground and targeting educators with free tools, a simple user interface and a growth plan.  You can start out with a free site by just logging in with your email and a password.  To help you get started, they’ve broken the process of building a website into 8 easy steps, after you’ve worked out the details.

Their standard package includes a free account that provides access to the majority of the features. The Pro account include the free features, plus a video player, audio player, protected pages and embedded documents (great for signups and permissions). Take a look at this brief video for more details.

No Ads Here

One big difference of this service for educators is the absence of ads on their free service. I remember a couple years back when Wiki’s first hit the scene.  One service let educators opt out of the ad piece until they couldn’t afford that anymore. It wasn't pretty.

Weebly actually has a place for you to ad your own Google ad sense window, if you’re so inclined. A better option may be to find a local sponsor that would take a banner ad to help you defer some costs.  The only advertising you have to agree for free pages is in their footer, not a bad trade-off.

Either way, if your main objective is to get the word out, Weebly can be a great way to go!

-By Mike DeBritz on Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Blogging has really exploded over the last couple years with a number of specific tools for educators that are both easy to use and free.

I’ve been following the development of Edublogs for some time now and see this as a very unique offering for school blogs. The simplicity of blogs really lends itself to after school programs, making it easy for site leaders to deliver frequent updates and news directly to their community.

The Edublog team focuses solely on educational content, so the likelihood of your hosted blog being blocked on a school network is lower. And because it's targeted to educators they've built a large number of step-by-step tutorials related to teaching that make getting started close to painless.

Their “Curriculum Corner” offers a wealth of resources from getting started tips to advice on setting guidelines for students. Take a look at this fun video "10 Great Ways to Use your Edublog" to get ideas on how to put this technology to use with your program.

 

Now wouldn't this make a great project for your older students? Assign a small group of students the job of posting articles, interviews and events to your blog. This way they gain valuable work experience and you get to broadcast all the great things happening in your program...that sounds like a true win-win!
 
I’d be interested in what you think of blogging in and for after school programs, please leave your comment below!