ITFORUM Paper #70 is Now Online: “Texas School Communications Study: Training for Frontline School Practitioners is Indicated”

http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/paper70/paper70.html

Chris will be with us next Monday, April 14 to discuss the paper with us. Please hold off on talking about the paper until that time

I really like this paper – it’s a short, readable paper with a slightly different focus than many of our other papers. The authors are looking at the perceived importance of Public Relations training in K-12 schools. There are some interesting findings when comparing the perceptions of teachers and administrators. My wife was a 3rd grade teacher for 13 years and is now an Assistant Principal, so I can tell you that public relations training for school professionals is an important topic in our house! I hope everyone, especially our many K-12 practitioners, ed leadership grad students, and others with experience in this area will join in the discussion.

Here is an excerpt from next week’s paper:

“When technology was used for communications purposes approximately 84% of site administrators and teachers reported using varying internet modes to communicate directly with their publics. Most teachers and site administrators noted that they had not received adequate preparation for this added job function. However, there did seem to be some discrepancy among teacher and administrator respondents as to how much use was attained. Between 70-80% of all the study’s participants reported using desktop publishing programs to communicate with internal and external clients, but a majority had claimed little formal training for this added duty. ”

Daniel Surry

Instructional Technology Forum

DSurry@USOUTHAL.EDU