Many businesses are often reluctant to start blogging – wondering what they might blog about, anxious that nobody will read it, debating if the initial enthusiasm will wane, doubtful of its ability to delivery traffic and sales.
One of our first clients (before we even set up the business in fact) was that of my children’s school. As I am on the Board of Management, I eventually managed to persuade the board to invest in a new website for the school, one that would show off our beautiful new buildings as well as all the wonderful work that the three teachers do with the fifty odd children.
I had the task of updating the previous website which never looked impressive and I fully intended to continue updating the new website. The only disadvantage was sometimes trying to decipher photographs (which classroom’s work did they belong to), children’s writing and sometimes confusing one classroom with another. We worked with Maura McDonnell regarding the implementation of the design of the website, creating a design that was clear cut, easy to navigate, colourful and child-centred. Using blog posts to update the site would ensure that it was easy to update.
I spent a couple of weekends creating content on the website and writing numerous blog posts and once all the teachers saw the website, they all seemed to be enthusiastic to learn how to write blog posts. We arranged a training session and they took to it like ‘ducks to water’. Naturally enthusiastic about teaching, they seemed to love taking photographs of the children’s work and the displays in the classroom and the website is updated with a fresh blog post at least once a week. It is lovely for the children to see their work featured and it gives parents an opportunity to see their children’s work (although very few tend to leave comments – having spoken to another principal about this, they found that parents are much more likely to interact on facebook than on the blog). The principal takes a photo of the ‘stars of the week’ on her phone and hence, that is altered easily each week too.
The Wandesforde School website is one of the finalists in the Web Awards which is being held this Saturday night in Dublin. In the ‘Best Education and Third Level website’ it is up against some third level college websites.
I am delighted for the teachers as although they all enjoy writing the posts, it is an extra task for them each week. It gives them the opportunity to showcase the splendid work completed in the school as well as the children’s smiling faces and all the facilities within the school. If a school can achieve this, what might a business achieve with similar enthusiasm?
Lorna
