As I shared earlier this week, I had the chance to present to principals about embracing technology for reflective conversations. The focus of the presentation was on helping principals become their own Communications Dept., sharing what’s going on at their campus using a variety of media. Part of my presentation involved sharing two tools they could use–digital audio recorder and a digital video recorder.

Today, I read something that could just as easily applied to my presentation. What strikes me about this is that the technology we have access to makes it easy to draw parallels between journalism and education efforts. For some reason, that bothers me. It’s as if new technologies present us with a problem that we all–regardless of our initial field of endeavour–are trying to parallel problem-solve.

A new video series called “Porkbusters On Patrol” is putting relatively inexpensive cameras into the hands of local reporters in an attempt to monitor unnecessary government spending.

Using a Flip Video Camera, reporters go to the site of governmentally financed projects to show what was produced with large sums of federal tax dollars.
Source: Porkbusters on Patrol – NewAssignment.net

The instructions given to the local reporters are very much like the ones I gave those principals:

“If you want to join our army of citizen reporters but don’t have a camera, you can get one free in exchange for your work. Just request a Flip video camera when you e-mail your story ideas.”

Revised, it is simply this:

“If you want to join our division of citizen-reporters but don’t have a digital recording device, you can get one for free in exchange for your work. Just request a digital audio recorder when you e-mail your story ideas.” We’ll set up a blog for you to share the great things going on at your campus.

How are you, as an educational leader, encouraging citizen-reporting–reporting the positive communications–in your school?