Lutheran Educators' Guild » Twitter

Twitter, Facebook…?

jbiddle — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:46:43 +0000

As I was looking through the followers’ list of one of the Guild’s Twitter followers (and after doing some searching of my own), I came to the conclusion that many of our Lutheran schools are missing out on some great opportunities to spread the word about their ministries online. I’ve spend several hours over the last months scouring Twitter for Lutheran schools with little success in locating very many. Of the ones I have found, several have tweeted a handful of times, with no new updates for months.

Twitter is a great way to share news and information about your school with the world. Twitter can easily be integrated with your school’s website or even manually updated. Anyone can learn to use Twitter in under an hour and updates take just a few seconds because of the 140 character limit. Best of all, Twitter is free.

In the late 1990s it became vital that churches and schools had websites to establish an online identity, but that is no longer enough. Now, it is crucial that your school have a strong Web 2.0 presence as well. Twitter is just a small part, though. Social networking sites like Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc seem to be appearing daily.

Does your school need to make use of all of these? Probably not, but some consideration should be given to each of them. Perhaps YouTube would be a good way to share PR and marketing videos with the community or maybe some students or classes could post a series of video Lenten and Advent devotions. Flickr could be use to share student work with families. There are an infinite number of possibilities.

What’s important is making it easy for current and potential families and students to find information about your school and to help them understand the ministry being done there. To paraphrase Scripture, it’s time to be the light of the world and put our schools on a hill so that all can see what is being done there, not for Earthly glory, but for the glory of our Lord and Savior.

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Update: Friends and Followers, Podcast?

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:58:50 +0000

We didn’t meet our goal of 100 friends and followers each on Facebook and Twitter, but we did reach 74 Facebook friends and 46 Twitter followers. That’s just amazing! Let’s see if we can add another 30 to each by the end of February, so 104 Facebook friends and 76 Twitter followers.

Also, we here at the Lutheran Educators’ Guild have begun talking about creating a Lutheran Education-focused podcast. We’d like to know how many of you listen to podcasts on a regular basis as well as how many of you might be interested in listening to one focused on Lutheran education. What would you like such a podcast to “look” like and what topics would you want to have discussed? Please, let us know in comments, on the forum, or via email.

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Update: Facebook and Twitter

admin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:30:12 +0000

As we approach the end of the month, I’d like to thank all of our new friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter for helping us as we strive to reach our goal of 100 friends and followers on each of these social networks. Currently, the Lutheran Educators’ Guild has 74 Facebook friends and 40 Twitter followers. I believe we can still reach our goal with your help. Please tell your friends and followers about the Guild and ask them to consider following us.

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We need your help!

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:47:21 +0000

A major reason for the existence of the Lutheran Educators’ Guild is “to create a community of fellowship and encouragement for Lutheran educators.” One way to do that is by spreading the word about the Guild to others. If you haven’t already, please take the time to become a fan of the Guild on Facebook (follow the link or use the Facebook Fan box on the right) and follow us on Twitter (@luthedguild). Please let your friends, followers, and PLNs know about us as well. Let’s see if we can reach 100 Facebook fans and 100 Twitter followers by the end of the month!

And while you’re here, please create a user account on the main Guild site so you can participate in our new forums.

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No Greater Moral Imperative

Coachburk — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:56:54 +0000

Michael Fullan states in “The Moral Imperative of School Leadership”,

“There is no greater moral imperative than revamping the principal’s role as part and parcel of changing the context within which teachers and students learn.” (p11)

What does that mean? I mean I know what it is trying to say, but what does that mean. What does it mean by a moral imperative? Or revamping the principal’s role? Or part and parcel? Plus what does this have to do with Jim Collins’ five-levels of leadership, as Fullan is making this statement about? Lets take these important key words in this statement; Moral Imperative – a principle originating inside a person’s mind that compels that person to act, Revamping – revise or restore, and Part and Parcel – “a portion” and “something integral with a whole.” Ok maybe that doesn’t make it any clearer. In laymans term, “We must act! We must revise and restore the role of a principal within the schools to help the teachers and students learn.” I hope that makes that statement a little bit more clearer.

SO WHAT? What about the 5 Levels of Leadership?

Jim Collins talk about from being good to great. He states that although a leader may fit into his first four levels of leadership they are only qualify to be good. You must be in the 5th level to be consider great. It is then you can change the context you are surrounded in. It is then you can best help teachers and students learn.

Personally, this takes away accountability on each teacher and student. They should take action for their own learning. At my school as mention before, we are in a freeze, no money for conferences. I debated with our school board that this is bad because our teachers do not do anything else for their own professional development. Our yearly conference was it for most of the teachers. I told him luckily, I am responsible for my own learning, although I want to go to the conferences for many different reasons. But, I am my own barrier if I do not learn. Writing this blog, is one way I am taking my learning into my own hands. Taking Master classes is another, reading blogs another, following educators on Twitter is just another way.

We do need to change how we look at teachers and students learn and how can we reach them in more efficient and effective ways. What are you doing to reach your students and teachers?

Connecting Across the U.S.

Coachburk — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:16:50 +0000

I just wanted to share quickly with everyone something that happened today in my classroom. A teacher from a Lutheran School in MO needed someone to interview for their school paper about the fires in California. This teacher conntacted me by Twitter and we set up a time to Skype. He had a student that was going to ask the questions and I got an 8th grade student to answer the questions. It was a great time and thing. I mentioned it to my principal and she stopped by and thought it was amazing and great. It only last 10 to 15 minutes, but we connected two students that do not know each other who live thousands of miles away from each other.

If you do not know what skype is, it is a free way to talk with anyone from the world (who has skype), you can call landlines for a price.

My student never got to do something like that and was very excited. We are moving in the right direction.

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PLN Starters

jbiddle — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:53:28 +0000

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Here is a wiki-ed list of resources for educators who are creating or adding to their Personal Learning Networks. Resources that begin with an “@” are links to Twitter pages.

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