Mundelein High School social worker Julie Wheeler wanted to reach students and parents in a non-threatening way, so she took a lesson from the kids and started her own blog.
The online journal may be too “old school” for teens who have long mastered the use of MySpace accounts, but many teachers and administrators only recently began experimenting with their own blogs, a term derived from “Web logs.”
“It’s the tip of the iceberg of something really, really tremendous that’s happening in education,” said Dave Sherman, principal of South Park Elementary School in Deerfield. “I really think this is cutting edge, where education is going in the next five to 10 years.”
He and several other Chicago-area school principals use the electronic forum to post announcements and allow immediate public feedback. Teachers are turning to blogs to extend classroom discussion after the school day, prompting students to debate or write about their assignments online.
Other professionals, such as Wheeler, offer students and parents a way to anonymously seek help online.
“The kids are so far ahead of us in technology,” Wheeler said.
She dispenses advice and recommends books and seminars and has other tips for students and their families.
While more educators are using blogs to communicate, it remains fairly unusual, and no data are available to chart the growth, experts said. Important messages still must be conveyed the old-fashioned way, often through backpack fliers, for families who don’t have computer access.
Blogs offer a new level of convenience, but some educators fear the technology will open them up to criticism.
“There is great resistance,” said Cynthia Mee, who teaches middle-school education at National-Louis University in Chicago. She requires her students to create blogs, saying educators must understand popular culture and learn to use it as a teaching tool.
“Kids desperately want to be heard,” Mee said. “But parents and teachers have a tendency to hear what they want to hear and not what kids want to say. Blogging gives kids a chance to share what’s important to them.”
As increasingly tech-savvy teachers enter the workplace, observers believe it’s only a matter of time before educators routinely post grades online or turn to blogs and podcasting as teaching tools.
Outside the classroom, some principals use blogs to communicate with parents and break the ice.
“It kind of takes the edge off of me a bit,” said David Younce, principal at Brooks Elementary School in Aurora.
“This has really helped with that, make people feel comfortable about that and in asking questions.”
Younce, who welcomes public comment as long as it remains civil, calls his blog “Banter from Brooks.” He tracks daily traffic on the site, which usually runs 80 to 100 views a day.
Responses to his blog hit an all-time high last fall when Younce wrote about why school officials decided to stop holding an annual Halloween costume parade during school hours, he said.
Sherman downloads video snippets of 4th- and 5th-grade band concerts and adds his opinions alongside school news.
He downloaded the Chicago Bears fight song to show his elation after the team’s playoff win over the Seattle Seahawks. A few days earlier, he wrote about the effects the federal No Child Left Behind law has had on his school.
While educators are eager to find new ways to communicate with parents, they’re not always ready for the feedback.
Jason Bednar, principal at Owen Elementary School in Naperville, shut the comments function down on his blog, saying he is still new at his job and prefers to respond to messages sent to his personal e-mail.
“I’m staying away from the most hot-button issues,” Bednar said, somewhat in jest.
Jason Leahy, executive director of Illinois Principals Association in Springfield, said it is important that blog rules are clear so confidential or inappropriate information is not made public.
“What’s nice with these blog sites, if you do want a two-way dialogue and to let people see these posts, the educator can monitor them and filter them,” Leahy said.
English teacher Tim Mathew at Valparaiso High School in northwest Indiana said he tells students if they post something inappropriate. “It’s the same as if they screamed out something in class,” he said.
“The biggest advantage of it, and why I keep on doing it, is the student who may be quiet in class will sometimes be liberated by it,” Mathew said. “Class discussion is limited to who can raise their hand first. A person who wants to sit and reflect a minute may not get that chance.”
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lblack@tribune.com
