Editor's Blog

By Bill Hurley

 

 

• A simple guideline for online conversations: Be Respectful

  Sunday, November 08, 2009

  More and more members and non-members are starting to take advantage of the opportunities to share their comments on weac.org stories and blogs and to participate on the WEAC Facebook page. We are very pleased to see this trend in sharing thoughts, ideas and perspectives on a wide variety of issues.
  
  Over the weekend, on weac.org, we saw quite a flurry of conversation, much of it surrounding reports on President Obama’s visit to Madison, his Race to the Top initiative, and state legislation crafted to make Wisconsin eligible for Race to the Top funds. For the most part, it has ...

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• WEAC Convention-goers get social online

  Sunday, November 01, 2009

  We had a great WEAC Convention last week, and you did too. How do we know?  Well, because you told us. We have several ways of getting feedback from you, and one of our newest is through social networking. This is the first WEAC Convention where we all talked together on Twitter and Facebook and through the interactive features of weac.org. And, it was fun!

  We created what’s called a hashtag on Twitter, which is really just a simple way of organizing messages. Anyone “Tweeting” about the WEAC Convention or wanting to read Tweets from and about the Convention ...

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• WEAC members embracing social media

  Monday, October 12, 2009

  We are making great progress on developing and expanding WEAC’s social media resources, and we’re getting more and more participation from our members every week. A couple events this week made me particularly excited about our progress.

  First was the online participation we saw last Tuesday when we posted a note on our Facebook page about Governor Doyle signing the 5-year-kindergarten attendance bill. In the few hours following the posting, we saw a dynamic conversation taking place with members congratulating teacher Anne Knapp for her work in getting the bill passed and talking about the benefits that the new law ...

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• You have somethin' to say?

  Friday, September 25, 2009

  Earlier this week, Franklin teacher Lisa Dennis posted the first New & Future Educators Blog item on weac.org, talking about the challenges – but importance - of remembering students’ names. That very interesting topic quickly drew this response from Guy Schmitz:

  “As a former student (not of Mrs. Dennis, but in general), I had trouble remembering the name of MY TEACHERS! I can't imagine how hard it must be for teachers....”

  How true it is. Then, this comment from Robert Nuszbaum followed: “I had a teacher in high school who forgot my name  following Christmas vacation. This may have little ...

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• Getting down and dirty with the swine flu

  Friday, September 11, 2009

  How will the H1N1 virus impact schools this school year? Well, based on the results of our Home Page online poll, many of you think it will get pretty bad. As of Friday (September 18), about 30% think swine flu will force many school closings; 57% believe it will have only a minor impact; and only 13% believe it will just blow over and have virtually no impact.
  
  Of course, there is no way we can predict how bad it might get, but we all agree we have to be prepared for the worst. That is why weac.org has ...

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• Back to School

  Monday, August 24, 2009

  By now, you’ve probably either seen WEAC’s Back to School spots on TV or heard them on the radio. We’ve launched a pretty expansive campaign to welcome students, parents, teachers and education support professionals back for another year of learning, and weac.org is a big part of the effort. Each of the TV and radio spots directs people to weac.org for more information about what they can do to help Wisconsin maintain great schools for our state’s children.
  
  Our high-profile Special Features box on the Home Page has striking graphics, with links, that focus on:
  

  1. Our special Back to ...

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• Kicking the tires

  Thursday, August 13, 2009

  The new weac.org is all about you, and that is why we brought a roomful of WEAC members together (twice) a few weeks ago to test it. It was approximately the six-month anniversary of the launch, and we thought it was time to kick the tires and see firsthand how the site handled in a live “road test.”
  
  After more than a year of extensive research and planning and finally implementation, it was an amazing experience to literally stand over the shoulders of these volunteers as they navigated through the site. We asked them to accomplish various goals, such as ...

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• Small, medium or large?

  Wednesday, August 05, 2009

  On most weac.org pages, you now can choose the size of text that best suits your mood, or your eyes. Look on the left side of the page for a small graphic displaying three different sizes of the letter A. Click on any of them and you will see the size of the text on that page change accordingly. This option appears on most pages, but if you want to give it a quick try, you could start right here on this page.

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• The Boomer technology boom

  Tuesday, July 21, 2009

  In a book titled Grown Up Digital, author Don Tapscott makes a compelling case that the generation that is now 12 to 30 is “reshaping the form and functions of school, work, and even democracy.” This generation, which he calls the Net Gen (also known as Millennials), has grown up on the Internet and all its incredible resources in much the way Baby Boomers and Gen Xers grew up on television. They are not in awe of this incredible technology; they take it for granted.
  
  There is no question that the Internet is shaping the way this new generation thinks ...

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• WEAC on Facebook

  Thursday, June 04, 2009

  WEAC has joined the World of Facebook, and we hope you will become a “fan” and an active participant.

  Many of you already have Facebook accounts and may have been enjoying the benefits of this increasingly popular social networking site for months or even years. All you have to do is go to the WEAC page (see below) and click “Become a fan.”

  If don’t have a Facebook account (called a profile), it’s easy to create one. Just go to www.Facebook.com. In the top right of the screen on the blue task bar, click on "Register" and follow directions. ...

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