I made some progress with the blog last night.  I was able to fill in the About page and start the home page.  I actually wrote questions to help me write the blog for the opening.  Thinking about structure helped.  This is where creating a blog is different than responding or just writing a blog.  There needs to be a plan.

I had some technical questions and thank goodness for the 10 minutes of fame.  I was able to ask Kristine about Word Press.  Some of the terminology and where they were located on the blog was confusing and I had a hard time distinguishing between a page, a widget and blogroll.  I think I have the terminology sorted out.  Kristine mentioned that a lot of what she learned was by doing and trial and error.  I’m glad she mentioned that because that is how I felt when trying to put this blog up.

As I was writing the intro to the blog the idea of members to the blog came to mind.  At first it was everyone, then it was just the teachers and then it was anyone who wanted to join or wanted to be “friended”.  After some consultation, the group supported the idea of inviting everyone on staff so I wasn’t creating a exclusive group.  Inclusivity is important and if I don’t do this from the start I might be creating bad feelings before I even start.  So I will have to change my welcome page.

Another worrisome idea came up and it was regarding participation and creating an active community.  Creating a blog with the best intensions doesn’t necessarily mean that there will be participation.  The group suggested a combination of writing blogs and meeting periodically with the principal buying food.  I don’t want to make it into a study group.

Kristine showed me a blog of the daring librarian.  Visually it looked stunning, but it seemed that there was a lot of constant updating and work involved.  As a visitor to the blog I might just look at it visit a few links, but I’m not sure if I would participate, because she is soooo “connected”.  I guess finding a balance and growing with the community that it will hopefully created might be a way to pursue this.

Two things to consider for the next pages-

1.  language cognitive domain

2.  structural coupling

How do you do this without being intimidating?

I added a share button to the blog.  I don’t use facebook, but I guess I shouldn’t impose my reasons on others and people are connected in various ways so I added some butons for people to share ideas outside the school.