In terms of who is busier, I think we can only really respond from our own frames and contexts– I’ve been in an administrative support role at a college, but not in the role of principal or superintendent (yet) in my career. I do know we are all busy, and helping any educator (administrator or classroom teacher) make the time required to not only start but sustain a new professional activity and sometime hobby like blogging is a tall challenge.

I think a big part of the “magic” of blogging is the feedback– the idea that there ARE people “out there” listening, responding, thinking, and thoughtfully acting as a result of the professional growth they/we experience “here” in the ether. So I think part of this recipe is helping administrators experience the excitement and even “thrill” which can come from having ongoing, asynchronous conversations with these tools.

The most ready way to get responses and feedback from posts right now, in my view, is to share something in an active educator social network like Classroom 2.0. While that Ning environment caters mainly to classroom teachers, there are lots of librarians there (I think) and a smattering of administrators. So I guess one of my first suggestions is to invite / convince an administrator to share a post there about a real issue or challenge they honestly want ideas and suggestions on. What you are trying to do, in this context, is help the person experience the beneficial power and potential of an extended learning community.

A second avenue which occurs to me is to invite an administrator to “guest blog” on an established blog site. This is something I have not given much consideration to in the past, but I will consider in the future. Again, I have seen Larry Lessig use guest bloggers before, and my perception is that those experiences have been positive in terms of helping the new blogger EXPERIENCE the benefits of interactive digital conversations.

Your word “irresistible” is the one that really sticks in my mind. I love that word in this and other contexts. (One of our pastors frequently uses it for benedictions too.) I agree that for a learning activity to be sustained voluntarily, it ideally needs to be irresistible. To have that impact, perhaps it needs to involve student voices. It is OK to blog for administrative purposes to get out news to parents and teachers, but it is MUCH more potentially exciting to blog and share student work, to solicit feedback from an extended audience.

Maybe it would be possible to match up non-blogging educators in two different locations, in the same or different countries, and have a team blog where they share student written work, questions or issues? I don’t know. I’m thinking out loud here. The key is there needs to be an audience willing and interested in interacting. When we share and celebrate the work of our students, we naturally invite interested audiences (families and friends) to share in the experience.

This is a great question and one I’ll continue to consider. I’m interested in hearing what others think too!

But I guess I’m not asking about why it needs to be done. I’m wanting to explore more the how. How do you, I, anyone help facilitate it happening in the real world. We talk and write about it. And change is happening slowly. But how can we improve on that?

(And thanks for the book tip–sounds like an interesting read.)

First off, administrators aren’t any busier than anyone else. Perhaps more stressful, but again, that’s all about perspective. Teachers are busy, everyone’s busy so I’m not sure they should be placed in separate category.

That said, to me leaders of any type need to consider moving their offline conversations online for the simple fact that they control the medium. Rather than leaving it up to other sources or staff room gossip to determine the character and direction of an organization, why not take the bull by the horns? I realize that even once they understand the nature of blogging, most have difficult with transparency. They see it as a weakness or providing an opportunity to be further scrutinized or targeted. What they forget is they are anyway, it’s just behind closed doors. Why not take control? Once they establish that, they can move into the more interesting and meaningful conversations around student learning.

I might recommend Naked Conversations as a starting point to read. It offers up many reasons why leaders should be blogging.

What do you think are the steps for welcoming educational administrators into an effective and enjoyable blogging experience include? How do we make blogging an meaningful, irresistible experience for administrators?