Getting people involved

[cara]

I think an aspect we need to really consider, is getting people,
teachers specifically, involved.

I have developed and currently maintain a website for a small private
school here in South Africa. One of the things I have found most
difficult is getting the other teachers involved.

I believe that the only way these websites of large public
(government) schools will meet our current internet age is if more
than the IT deparment become involved, i.e. the teachers need to
participate.

My experience has been that collegues see the school website as having
nothing to do with them.

Recently I set up a private teachers section (using wordpress) of the
site where they can share things, get important information, upload
documentation etc... The comment made was "It must be nice to have
time to play"

So I come back to, we need to thing of ways to "educate" the main
players, the teachers. We will need to convince them that
participation in a school web site is important and that it can, if
done properly, become an extension of their classroom.

[Michael]

I definitely agree. They are stakeholders in any Web presence their
school has, but they often don't realize it or think about their role
in making it work for them and their community. "It must be nice to
have time to play" is exactly the mindset that helps hold things
back.

Any thoughts on "educating" the teachers as to their need to
participate in their schools' sites?

[Caleb Fidecaro]

This may be a stupid idea, but what about a leader board of some
kind?

I know the teachers at my private school were always in for a bit of
friendly competition, racing to see who could get their class together
for assembly first etc.

Perhaps some kind of scoring based on activity by user? Maybe the
teachers get badges based on participation or use of their page/
section?

Maybe that's a terrible idea? :P

[cara]

Actually not such a bad idea. Some of the best educational sites (you
know, sites explaining things like the earth's structure, or whatever)
I have seen come from thinkquest, a competition for school students
across the world to build a webpage.

[Michael]

No, it's a good idea. We did something similar one year as an adjunct
to a competition among the kids to get them reading. The teachers did
the same thing. I saw teachers reading that I weren't sure COULD
read :) They respond to that stuff.

[Michael]

Wow, ThinkQuest might be an excellent resource.... Never thought of
it. Woo hoo!