The Principal's Office

at Two Writing Teachers!

"... And you've got to help me get this blog thing going!" Just as I walked away, my principal's booming voice pulled me back. Has he been talking to my mom again? Good for him though, he's so interested in education reform... He needs to share those big ideas beyond just emailing the staff every once in a while!

Even as a teacher, the principal's office seems pretty intimidating. But for a few days last week, he waved me in at our scheduled times as if it were my office too. Instead of sitting across the table feeling small and nervous, I plopped my laptop beside his and we sat elbow to elbow as colleagues. (Well, colleagues who address each other as "Dr." and "Kiddo"... but still, colleagues!)

We brainstormed titles... and then brainstormed again when his first few ideas were already taken. Using my blog and my mom's blog as models, we customized the theme, played with the layout, and added a few essential widgets.

"Look, if you got Twitter, we could put a widget with your tweets! You could tweet out interesting articles, plus you could share your blog posts and more people would read them!" (I had been nudging him to join Twitter since the fall, and that emtpy-looking sidebar seemed like the perfect opportunity.)

"Really?" He raised an eyebrow and grinned. Now Twitter was on our to-do list too. The next day, after a quick lesson on tweets, hashtags, and following, @DrDonis was ready to connect with the world!

Next, pages of scrawled ideas took shape into a blog post draft.  We added labels and made hyperlinks as his eyes sparkled. "This is exciting! All these ideas laying around, and I always thought, 'What am I going to do with these? I'm not going to write a book!' But this, I can do this!"

Finally, after just a few days, it was time. What a rush it was when I hit that big orange "Publish" button for the first time... I held up my arms and took a dramatic deep breath. "Are you ready? Hitting that button is a big deal! Here we go! Look out, world!"

My principal is enthusiastic and he cares about kids more than anything. Now, he's also a 21st century learner. Please welcome him to the blogging world! I know his life as a learner and an educator will never be the same, because mine sure hasn't been.

It's incredible what one little SPARK can do.