Principal Blogs

This was my first time examining educational blogs. The blogs were found on the site: http://supportblogging.com/Links+to+School+Bloggers and was made up of a long list of educational blogs. The blogs were divided up into categories like students, teachers, classrooms, principals, and administrators. I found it particularly interesting that the blogs were from all over the world. The category I examined first was a list of blogs set up by principals from the United States, New Zealand, and Canada all regarding secondary education. I enjoyed my experience and here are some highlights:

The most interesting blog goes to Trevor Smith from Central Collegiate High School in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan named Random Thoughts of an Ed Admin Lifer at http://mohjoe.edublogs.org/. Mr. Smith covered everything from his last graduation speech to his personal philosophies of education. He set up links to YouTube video's about the Apocalypse and Pink Floyd's The Wall. I felt that he was very open and honest about his educational thoughts, but to a fault. An educator should have an open mind regarding new and exciting ways to help students reach their potential. Those ideas can be different and sometimes need to come from outside the box, but I felt he exposed some things about himself that do not need to be made public for the entire world to see. Sometimes those effective, but different, ideas are what is needed to make changes, but if the wrong people see them, they can be misconstrued. As a result, the ideas may be lost as rumors spread regarding your intentions.

The other blog which caught my eye was PHSPrincipalBLOG by Dave Meister at http://phsprincipal.blogspot.com/. I found this blog interesting, because of the topics he wrote about and the engaging comments made in response. For example, Mr. Meister posts helpful hints on how to deal with negativity and there were four intelligent responses. This pattern is repeated throughout the blog. Obviously Mr. Meister has established an open forum in which people can discuss important educational issues.