The TCEA TechEdge magazine just published their Summer, 2009 issue and it features two of my articles, including:

1. Reaching for the Heart – 5 Tips for School District Communication Directors: “Jesus Figueroa tells trustees: ‘My hair is not hurting anybody. My hair causes no students to be held back in their eduation.'” So reads the almost 140 character tweet sent by SA Express News writer, Michelle de la Rosa (http://twitter.com/mmdelarosa), who often covers local San Antonio school issues using Twitter.com, a social media tool. The challenge to Figueroa’s long hair reaches a school district’s school board (in San Antonio, Tx), only to see an eventual capitulation by that Board, “Unanimous board vote to grant Figueroa special dispensation from grooming policy. He gets to keep long hair and stay in regular classroom.” (Read the rest of the story online at http://tinyurl.com/dfu7bp). Even if you cannot attend the Board Meeting, you are transported there, following electronic bread crumbs, or “tweets.”

   Several districts, like Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD and Kerrville ISD, embraced the use of Twitter–a micro-blogging tool–during the alleged Swine Flu Epidemic (a list of Texas Twitterers appears online at http://mguhlin.wikispaces.com/txtwits). In the past, school districts have perceived media attention as invariably negative, rejoicing whenever positive stories can be had. Press releases, strategic presentations to special community groups and advocates are only a small part of what is possible. In fact, those approaches may even be superfluous to what is really possible with social media tools. Yet, time and again, school districts step back from encouraging their staff, students and parents from using social media. Failure to embrace these tools leaves school districts open to attacks, but times are changing–parents are fighting back using social media. “Activist parents now have,” points out Dr. Scott McLeod, “a bevy of new tools and strategies to help facilitate their agendas and they are not afraid to use them. School organizations are going to have to get used to this new state of affairs in which parent activism and criticism are more public, permanent, and far-reaching.”

   This article is about how school districts can use social media tools and connect with the global audience, circumventing the traditional media to get the real story out there.
   Read the rest.

2. Download a la Mode – Netbooks Go Viral: Those new Dell Minis–one of the several netbooks around–are sweet to have. A colleague recently shared, “I just bought one of those, and took it to a meeting. The technology director asked me, ‘Is that a district laptop?'” She paused in her story. “That was the beginning of a longer conversation about connecting non-district equipment to the district network. I didn’t know about spyware and all that other crud.” The question is one I’ve considered often, and that comes up on education listservs from time to time. This article shares some free solutions that work on Windows Operating system that can be installed at no charge on Windows computers (netbooks, desktops or laptops).

   The questions this article seeks to answer for you are:
   How do I protect my personal computer–netbook or otherwise–from spyware or adware?
   How can I protect my netbook from viruses?
   I’ve heard that Internet Explorer has problems. What browser might I use instead?
   Read the rest

I hope you’ll enjoy these articles!

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure