Blogs in the Classroom - and now your PTA blog!

There's evidence that blogging is good.  Good for students and education.  Basically, writing and reading provides the foundation for education (read The educated blogger: Using weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom).

Now that we've agree that blogging is good for students and teachers, let's determine if blogging is good for your PTA. 

I personally believe that writing is a way to reinforce ideas - your ideas.  The process of writing clarifies and organizes as you write them.  By explaining clearly on a blog, what you really do is allow yourself an opportunity to see any problems, pitfalls or issues with what you are explaining.  The flipside is that fun and exciting things may come to light that you may not have even thought about.

I believe a PTA blog should be used to clearly illustrate goals and achievements and explain special events.  Blogs are the best 'home base' for your PTA photos and videos as well.  Take your blog posts to a new level by linking to them from Twitter and Facebook and even more rewarding will be linking to your PTA blog articles directly from the school newsletter or school website!

As long as you are thinking through what you are posting being sensitive to some very basic common sense rules, you'll be posting quality stuff in no time!

Ok, until next time!

P.S. you can check out a few of the blogs I run below.  The Fundraising PLN blog is a bit snazzy for typical use, however, the Believe school fundraising blog below is a completely free blog as is this one you are reading now. Truth be told, this Blogger blog is far easier to use than Wordpress and integrates seamlessly into your Google account.

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www.BelieveKids.com
www.Twitter.com/BelieveKids
www.Facebook.com/BelieveKids
www.BelieveKids.com/Blog/
www.BelieveFundraising.Wordpress.com

New School - The importance of your PLN (Personal Learning Network)

In education today as well as most business endeavors, it's important to have connections.

Everyone does.

We We have connections both physical and electronically.  It's natural to have a group of people you are connected to.  A group that you share stories with, critique products, take learning to a new level.

A PLN has been around for a very long time with it's history rooted in face-to-face contacts and through books, clubs and letters.  It's just been recently that a resurgence has taken place and a the term PLN has really taken root. Its gone digital as well.

Many of the people I share my insight on PLN's with are educators or school fundraising folks, but everyone has a PLN or two for various reasons.  Any interest you have that you research and become actively involved in can be considered a PLN. 

So, here is an example of a current PLN you probably have already.  You have a kid in school. You have the principal email list, the teacher updates sent via email, the school website and a few parents you talk with concerning the school. You talk with the gym teacher from time-to-time because your child has an interest in a particular sport for example.

My PLN is very different from yours or anyone else's for that matter. Your collection of resources and information you choose to keep close is up to you. You count on your PLN when you need information, advice or insight.


I hope this clears some things up and encourages you to develop a PLN for the things you are most interested in.

Ok, until next time!

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twitter
school fundraising
fundraising pln

How Twitter has Changed...

The world wide web certainly has seen it's fair share of web successes and web failures in just a few short years - the rise and fall of AOL, Pets.com and successes such as Amazon, eBay, Myspace, Facebook and the meteoric rise of Groupon.com just to name a few.

The one thing in common for any web success is that it does have a peak.

The peak of eBay was roughly 2002 in my opinion.  During this period, people were just beginning to trust the web and if you were a seller on the site, certainly would believe this time period was the golden age.  Anything could be sold and for top dollar as collectors finally had a way to purchase long desired items that were not easily obtainable in local stores.

The peak of Myspace was right around the time where Tom sold it - smart guy :)

So, I use twitter and I think it is the very best collaborative tool for building my PLN - my personal learning network. I also blog regularly.  Unfortunately, blogging about elementary school fundraising is about as popular as blogging about the rubber band industry.  Regardless, you're reading this.  But really, I'm convinced that someone out there made an improvement because of one of my posts and that gives me as much motivation as I need to keep with it.

Twitter has a diverse and extensive number of educators, school administrators, principals, librarians and a slew of companies that support education.  For that reason, I have a PLN that includes a number of categories of education related folks and I am better off for it.

I have noticed that when twitter changes and particularly with the new look and feel, the site has changed.  It's harder in some ways for me to see how I am influencing others and I am quite sure others find it harder to find out if they are making a difference by being on twitter as well.  Sure, I know how to use the site inside and out so it's not my knowledge... It's just the way it functions differently now than it did.

My point is that Twitter will have a peak at some point.  Because I like twitter to such an extent that I have come to rely on it, I want that peak to happen many, many years from now.  I just wonder sometimes because if a site changes too much, they can cause that peak to happen to themselves before it's time.

Regardless, there are so many educators and amazing people on twitter that a little blip or two won't change the power of my PLN as it relates to my enjoyment and personal development online.  This post is getting a bit out of hand so I will call it a day at this simple request:

Twitter... don't change so much anytime soon.  Keep your site easy to use and friendly and more and more folks will develop their own PLN - one that is relevant to them. Make it simple for me to know if my ideas are spreading and I'll be forever thankful. 

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Keep the conversation going on twitter - twitter.com/believekids
school fundraising companies
school fundraising blog

Friday Inspiration - Creating and Recognizing Your PLN - Personal Learning Network

You have a PLN - a personal learning network.  You may not be aware of it but everyone has a PLN both online and offline.  Simply put, it's the people and places you go to for support on a given topic. 

Here's an example:

If you are a school PTO and you are the fundraising chair, you may appreciate visiting my blog from time to time.  You may also visit the PTO Today website or maybe you do a search for help with help throwing an event fundraiser.  You also have a friend in another state that is a PTO president whom you keep in touch with and you call a representative from the fundraising company you use as well.

All these add up to having a PLN.

You have a PLN online and offline.  Consider this, let's say you like fitness.  You have a local gym you go to, a dance class on thursdays and a private yoga lesson on Fridays.  This is your fitness PLN.  Chances are you also have a place you go to buy gear for these and sports drinks, etc and you probably get a magazine delivered to the house.  This is the environment around you that contributes to your knowledge and enjoyment of fitness.

So, here's your challenge for the weekend... Just describe to yourself a personal or professional topic you have interest in and list the people, resources and research tools associated with that topic on and offline.

It helps to recognize who and what it is around you that contributes to your learning and enjoyment of a particular topic.  Have fun with it!

Until next time!

Best Practices in Social Networking for Educators

Here's a great video!

It's an introduction to discovering your own online PLN (personal learning network).  Basically, getting out there on the web, finding out that there is a bunch of folks just like you that are all sharing insight and ideas and using that information to help others and share yourself.

You'll find that people are using technolog, learning and sharing in ways we've not seen before.  It's important and I am sure you'll appreciate it!

Elementary School Fundraising PLN (Personal Learning Network)

We've decided to begin a new blog site.

It's the fundraising PLN or fundraising personal learning network. The idea here is that we post very useful insight and information to help PTA and PTO groups along with school administrators and principals find good and truly valuable content related to hosting successful elementary school fundraisers.

PLN's or Personal Learning Networks are gaining momentum in education because groups of like-minded individuals can be networked together with the purpose of gaining insight that will help in their individual efforts.

We think it's about time elementary school fundraisers had a PLN!

With this site we can all become better and more successful at what we do to raise money for elementary schools as fundraising companies, schools and groups as well as parents and the community - enjoy!

We are posting daily to the site and hope you find it valuable. At this point, any insight would be appreciated so please let me know via comments here or on twitter. Please Although we will be working on new content daily, we invite you to check it out and get a feel for what is going to develop into the best resource for information and advice on elementary school fundraisers.

You can access the site by visiting www.believekids.com/blog or www.fundraisingpln.com

Regardless of how you get to the site, I truly hope every PTA and PTO member plus school administrators, teachers and principals gets some value out of the site!

Feel free to bookmark and share and give me any feedback here or on twitter! Thanks!!