The How-To of the Blog

Hello again. This is the part where we discuss the how-to-do-it of the blog.

First, the stuff that must be said: This blog is intended to be open and free for all to contribute, as and when needed, as it relates to your interests for the growth and development of the school. That said, please know that standard Internet communication, blog rules and protocol apply here: please keep your words clean and purposeful. Expletives will not be tolerated. This blog is meant to be productive and with the intent for all to be informed. Please approach your communication on this blog with the perspective that this is a public forum and that prospective parents and media will be reading our blog. This is not a place to discuss specific issues with parents, teachers or about specific children. We trust you will use traditional channels of good communication face-to-face or a secure email connection. Internet protocols elsewhere exist in which you would be required to sign an agreement in order to participate. For now, we will consider that your participation constitutes agreement. Once you decide to contribute, you are, in essence, agreeing to the rules.

How Do I Participate?

First, there are several words you will see floating around blogs: Post, Posting Comments, among many others. Here is a brief definition of commonly used words:

Post: A post is what you’re reading right now. A post is an article which makes up a blog. Typically, one person’s blog is made up of their own posts (musings, or whatever), to which people can respond, by “posting a comment.” For a more complete description feel free to explore:

http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2006/06/the-giant-blogging-terms-glossary/

How Do I Respond?

For the purposes of our school blog, you will respond, or “post a comment” by going through the moderator, in this case, me, Natasha. You will email me at natasha@kewene-hite.com and I will post it for you through the blogging application, which for us is www.blogger.com. Other than moderating in the sense that I just make sure your post is not full of expletives, no judgement will be made on your post. I will just post and include your name (as a signature) to the bottom. In most blogging applications, you would need to sign on with a user id and password to post a comment. I am assuming that not everyone will want to do this, so emailing me your post will bypass that requirement. If you choose to sign up and post your own comment, which you could through the blogger.com site, however, that is your choice.

As an organizational note, all topics mentioned above will be given and categorised by Labels, which you’ll find at the lower right hand of the post, so that over time, posts containing specific issues and topics will be listed on the Sidebar by subject. I will apply the labels when I receive your emails.

Please consider this blog a work-in-progress. As moderator, I’m open to your opinions and comments on what you find here. Please consider this to have oversight by the Council as well. Over time, as our blog develops, relevant issues that may come up will be brought to the council for discussion. Again, your ongoing comments are welcome.

Happy Blogging everyone. Now on to the fun stuff…

Introductions...

Welcome to the first post of the Kildare Steiner School Blog!

My name is Natasha and I will be the first of the parent moderators for this blog. Please consider this the beginning of what I hope will be an enlightening, inspiring and useful resource for the school which will work to meet the following needs of our school community:

• Communication between parents and faculty …to explore ideas and possibilities regarding school development. This is not meant to replace email or obviously, face to face connection.

• Announcements for Events/Activities/Class & School Outings - meant as a complement to the posted handouts at the school and those received through the children.

• PR, Enrolment and School Promotion – With the overall idea that the activities and events of the school would be documented over time, the collective material that would accumulate here on the blog can become a contributing factor to the means by which prospective parents looking into the school might use to determine and assess the value of sending their children to the school.

• Fundraising – Aside from grant work and conversations that are most often done behind-the-scenes, this will be a place to exchange, propose and explore ideas related to increasing funds for the school. This might also be the place where ideas previously discussed at meetings can be posted for the community response.

As I’m sure you know, we had two recent fundraising events earlier in the month, the Flag Day on June 6th and Bag Packing Day on June 12th. Both were very successful in raising funds for the school and raised collectively over 1200 euro. Through the blog we will be able to post follow up comments on past events. Many thanks to our teachers, parents and students for your time and contribution!

• Site Development – With our ongoing list of needs and wants for our school grounds, many of the issues both immediate and down the road can be posted for all to see and respond to.

The blog will also have ongoing features, which you will find to the right of the screen, known as the Sidebar. Sidebar Features will provide an ongoing slideshow of recent events (above), as well as something of a portal, where to the right, you will find links to the following:

a. Steiner Community nationally/globally
b. Inspiration – Steiner Schools around the world
c. Articles on Steiner Education
d. Among other things…

Through the medium of a blog, needs, issues and successes relating to our school can be available for all to partake.

Please see the second post for the How-To of the Kildare Steiner School Blog! This is meant to work for us as parents and faculty, to help us work dynamically together. We welcome you and your participation.

Best wishes for our blogging experience, Natasha