LeaderTalk

 

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About LeaderTalk 

LeaderTalk is the first group blog by school leaders for school leaders. LeaderTalk contributors include superintendents, principals, educational leadership faculty, central office administrators, and other school leadership folks. Read more about LeaderTalk here.


Want to be a LeaderTalk author?

LeaderTalk welcomes new voices! If you'd like to be a contributor to LeaderTalk, here’s what we’ll expect from you:

  1. One thoughtful post per month. Not a newsletter item, but a reflective piece that addresses something that would be of interest to other administrators. You could blog about something occurring in your organization, a resource or reading you came across, a news item that raises administrative concerns, a presentation you saw at a conference, whatever you want. There are no parameters on what you write about other than it should be of general interest to principals, superintendents, and/or central office administrators. We want your voice to come out. Feel free to take a stand, express an opinion, highlight something controversial, point readers to something really useful. Let’s give folks reasons to keep coming back day after day because there are interesting conversations occurring and helpful resources to be accessed.

    12 posts per year. That’s all. You will have a designated blogging day (e.g., the first, the fifteenth) each month. You can blog as often as you like on other days too as long as you make certain you blog on your designated day of the month.

    Here are some examples of the type of posts I'm talking about (yours don't have to be this long):

  2. A willingness to be public. No anonymity, no pseudonyms, no blogging under an assumed name. Our Contributors page will have your name, title, and a brief blurb about you (which you will give us). You can use pseudonyms to protect the identity of others (e.g., local teachers or students) if that is a concern.

  3. Some help publicizing the blog. It would be helpful if you sent out a little blurb about LeaderTalk to your local and state administrator communities (e.g., administrators in your district, members of your state principals association, students in your graduate program).

  4. Some help identifying other folks that might be good additions to our cast of writers. I want to expand our list of bloggers to increase the diversity of perspectives. My eventual goal is to have 3 to 5 school leaders blogging each day.

That’s it. Nothing too frightening. Nothing too time-consuming. A few paragraphs from you on the same day of every month and a little help with publicity and finding new writers. I will set up the blog and take care of all technical and administrative concerns.

One final note: we're migrating to Education Week. They liked LeaderTalk so much, they asked if we'd become one of their blogs. It was a near unanimous YES. This means we'll have a much larger audience, so be prepared!


Sign up to be an author

Still interested? If so,

  1. please complete this online form: LeaderTalk author sign-up
  2. please e-mail me that you completed the form ('cause I'm busy and don't check the form every day)
  3. read the note below about desktop blogging tools

After I receive your information, I'll be back in touch! 

SCOTT McLEOD
(please contact me if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions!)


Desktop blogging tools

Cutting-and-pasting from Microsoft Word doesn't work very well with TypePad (to be honest, it doesn't really work at all). If you don't want to compose your blog post directly in TypePad, here are some software tools that you can use to create your post and then paste into TypePad:

Free

Not free

 

About me

I am an Associate Professor and coordinator of the Educational Administration program at Iowa State University. I also am Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE). Most of my work is in the areas of technology leadership, data-driven decision-making, and school law. I blog myself at www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org and have been trying to help principals understand the power of blogging for their own administrative practice. You can learn more about me at my web site or by reading my vitae.