I spoke to some of the admin staff at my son’s school today about my idea for setting up a parent maintained blog which would contain announcements and other general information and act as an unofficial school web site. One of the staff, a teacher I think, seemed to think it would be a good idea, where as one of the other admins was ‘Oh, we’ll have to speak to someone about this. I’m not sure.’. In other words, quite negative, but I was expecting this.
In any case, to get them to email me information will require some form of approval, although I could probably go ahead all the same. However, having the backing of the school would be nice. A blog would also be an advantage for them as it would mean that parents would be able to find out about events and be prepared for them, whether the events relate to school activities; school trips and the like; or information about strikes.
Using WordPress, it would be relatively easy to set up a system which could provide information on a class by class basis, if necessary. I just have to check whether there is an Italian version of WordPress.com. Hope so.
Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
Then, I will need to find some volunteers who would be prepared to receive emails and update the blog, and it would be nice to have a teacher participating in the process too.
It may be possible, but not with WordPress.com though, to add Adsense to the school blog and use the revenue as a way of supplementing school funds, although I’m not sure just how much revenue such a blog could generate seeing as its audience would be quite limited.
Really, every school, in parts of the world where Internet is widespread, should have blog and I’m pretty sure many do. Setting up and running a blog would be a useful experience for pupils and would give them an insight into using technology. A parent run blog would enhance relations between the school and all those whose children attend the school (or schools) in question.
In effect all a school blog is is a virtual notice board, only you would not have to actually go to the school to see it.
