Mike Falick's Blog

Spring Branch Teachers and Students Can Now Blog for Free on the My SBISD Community of Blogs

Are you a teacher or student in Spring Branch with an interest in blogging?  Now you can learn how to blog, and do so for free at the District's new community blogging site located at http://blog.mysbisd.com.

From the blogging website:

Welcome to My SBISD!

January 2008: My SBISD is an online community blogging site for Spring Branch ISD teachers and employees. At this time, there are several classrooms throughout the district who are piloting programs where teachers and students create and maintain blogs for educational and instructional purposes. If you are not a part of this pilot program, hopefully in the near future, as the “kinks get worked out”, more and more teachers will be afforded this opportunity.

For all other teachers and employees of Spring Branch ISD, there is a limited amount of blog space being made available on this site. With this part of the blogging initiative, teachers and employees can participate by creating their own professional blog.

If you are interested in creating a professional blog for your classroom or department, please click the link below, to create your own blog. You must be a district employee and you must use your Spring Branch ISD employee email address when you set your blog up.

Before creating your site, please download and read the Teachers Blogging Acceptable Use Guidelines. If you are one of the teachers piloting the program where you are blogging with your students as part of your curriculum, please download the Student Blogging Acceptable Use Guidelines . All students and their parents MUST read and sign this document before they should be allowed to create their blog for your class.

In the near future, look for online tutorials that will show how to use the blogging feature.

CREATE YOUR BLOG HERE!

This Blog is Featured on the Municipalist Blog

Last month, I was interviewed (via email) by the Municipalist blog, a blog that is highlighting elected and appointed governmental officials.

The posting from my interview is available here and is also below.  You can also read it by clicking on the image to the left.

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January 09, 2008

Q & A: Mike Falick, school board member, Spring Branch, Texas

Local school board member Mike Falick was elected in May 2004 in the Spring Branch Independent School District on the west side of Houston, and re-elected unopposed in 2007. He is well into his third year of blogging, and claims 100,000 page views. "I think people in our community like the information I provide," he says. The school district serves a broadly diverse student population of 32,000 students.

What inspired you to begin blogging? I began blogging in August 2005. The reason I began blogging was that I see the blog as a very effective communication vehicle for providing real-time information about our district to the community. Initially, as the board's legislative liaison, my idea was to provide the community with information concerning legislation that might impact our district. Over time, the scope of the blog has broadened to include board related items, including a recap of all of our board meetings, and items of general educational interest.

What do you see are the benefits to your blogging? With the blog, I can rapidly disseminate important information to the community. In addition, I have found educational resources on the internet that are being utilized in our district. I have also been able to post information about issues in a timely manner concerning legislative issues that affect our district's finances and educational programming.

What have been the challenges, or the negatives? There really have not been any challenges or negatives.

What do your constituents think of your blog? I have received a great deal of very positive feedback from my constituents concerning the blog. I think people in our community like the information I provide. I also send out a weekly email newsletter through Constant Contact to over 1,000 people with links to updates from the blog.

What do your fellow board members think? I think my fellow board members like the blog. Indeed, one of the other board members has started her own blog.

What advice would you give other school board members who would consider blogging about their work? I would give four pieces of advice.

First, use a blogging service that makes posting, adding hyperlinks, and uploading pictures and documents easy. There are a lot of choices, out there. I use TypePad which I have found to be very user friendly.

Second, make sure you are willing to post with some regularity. I posted for almost a month before I let people know about the blog to test that I would actually post.

Third, I have found it useful to email my blog posts to people on a regular basis. As I said above, I use Constant Contact.

Finally, add a counter to you blog and use a service that allows you to see where your hits are coming from and what people are reading on your blog. I use Statcounter and I know Google has its own blogging analytics.

More helpful information can be found in this American School Board Journal article from the September 2007 issue (pdf).

Posted at 06:16 PM

Local school board member Mike Falick was elected in May 2004 in the Spring Branch Independent School District on the west side of Houston, and re-elected unopposed in 2007. He is well into his third year of blogging, and claims 100,000 page views. "I think people in our community like the information I provide," he says. The school district serves a broadly diverse student population of 32,000 students.

What inspired you to begin blogging? I began blogging in August 2005. The reason I began blogging was that I see the blog as a very effective communication vehicle for providing real-time information about our district to the community. Initially, as the board's legislative liaison, my idea was to provide the community with information concerning legislation that might impact our district. Over time, the scope of the blog has broadened to include board related items, including a recap of all of our board meetings, and items of general educational interest.

What do you see are the benefits to your blogging? With the blog, I can rapidly disseminate important information to the community. In addition, I have found educational resources on the internet that are being utilized in our district. I have also been able to post information about issues in a timely manner concerning legislative issues that affect our district's finances and educational programming.

What have been the challenges, or the negatives? There really have not been any challenges or negatives.

What do your constituents think of your blog? I have received a great deal of very positive feedback from my constituents concerning the blog. I think people in our community like the information I provide. I also send out a weekly email newsletter through Constant Contact to over 1,000 people with links to updates from the blog.

What do your fellow board members think? I think my fellow board members like the blog. Indeed, one of the other board members has started her own blog.

What advice would you give other school board members who would consider blogging about their work? I would give four pieces of advice.

First, use a blogging service that makes posting, adding hyperlinks, and uploading pictures and documents easy. There are a lot of choices, out there. I use TypePad which I have found to be very user friendly.

Second, make sure you are willing to post with some regularity. I posted for almost a month before I let people know about the blog to test that I would actually post.

Third, I have found it useful to email my blog posts to people on a regular basis. As I said above, I use Constant Contact.

Finally, add a counter to you blog and use a service that allows you to see where your hits are coming from and what people are reading on your blog. I use Statcounter and I know Google has its own blogging analytics.

More helpful information can be found in this American School Board Journal article from the September 2007 issue (pdf).

edublogs Provides a Free Blogging Site for Students Who Want to Blog

Recently a friend asked me about how his son, a 5th grader, could start a blog -- economically.  That lead me to edublogs, a site that provides free blogs for students.

TexasIsd.com Highlights this Blog as "an Example of Good Communication"

One of the websites I read every day is www.texasisd.com, and I always make a point to read the daily commentary by the site's editor, Joe Smith.  That's why Joe's post today, which highlights this blog, is really  humbling. 

Joe's site should be a must read for anyone who wants to keep up with the latest news on educational issues throughout the State of Texas.
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From TexasISD.com
     Joe's Commentaries
     "An Example of Good Communication" by Joe Smith - Good Morning - August 29,  2007
     By Joe Smith
     Aug 29, 2007, 08:45

I read a number of publications, blogs, email, and websites each day related to Texas public schools in order to produce the great variety of content on TexasISD.com. As I did my daily reading this week I read a note on Mike Falick's Blog that he has received his 100,000^th hit on his blog and it came via a link on TexasISD.com from a reader in Port Lavaca.

Why am I telling you this? Two purposes, it would give you another opportunity to read a very good article if you missed it and it also gives me a transition to share an additional post from Mike’s Blog that could be helpful in your school district. Mike Falick is a school board member in Spring Branch ISD who stated that he started this blog “in an effort to communicate ongoing Spring Branch ISD activities to the community and provide information regarding education that I think is useful or interesting”. This  post is an excellent example of an article to summarize a school board meeting for the staff and community.

Recap of Tonight's Board Meetingis great communication.  I read it, followed the links and now I have a good feel for what happened at the meeting. Congratulations to SBISD board being the 2007 outstanding board from Region 4. I appreciate Mike Falick’s work to promote quality public education and sharing his work from a school board members perspective through his blog.

This Blog Received Its 100,000th Hit Today

Today at 1:53p, this blog received its 100,000th hit.  The hit came from Port Lavaca, Texas as a referral from a link on www.texasisd.com to this post from last Thursday.

On August 6, 2005, I started this blog in an effort to communicate ongoing Spring Branch ISD activities to the community and provide information regarding education that I think is useful or interesting.  Since that first post which contained a link to my testimony before the Senate Education Committee I have posted nearly 800 additional times.  This blog receives an average of over 200 hits a day, and that number is continuing to grow.

Thank you to all of you who have read this blog, and for all the favorable comments you have provided.  As always, you can sign up on the right to receive a weekly or an "as updated" email containing updates to this blog.

Today Marks this Blog's 2nd Birthday

On August 6, 2005, I started this blog in an effort to communicate ongoing Spring Branch ISD activities to the community.  Since that first post which contained a link to my testimony before the Senate Education Committee, I have created hundreds of posts that have been seen by over 96,000 visitors.  As the Board's Legislative Liaison from 2004 - 2007, I have attempted to include legislative information on a frequent basis, and I have posted recaps of each of the Board's meetings.

Thank you to all of you who have read this blog, and for all the favorable comments you have provided.  As always, you can sign up on the right to receive a daily or weekly email containing updates to this blog.

This Blog is Rated G

Mingle2 gives this blog a G Rating.  That's good to know.

This Blog is not Blocked by China

The website greatwallofchina.org allows you to test any web site and see in real time if it is block in China.  I just tested this blog, and I must not present a threat.

Blog Receives Its 50,000th Hit

On August 6, 2005, I started this blog in an effort to communicate ongoing Spring Branch ISD activities to the community.  Since that first post which contained a link to my testimony before the Senate Education Committee, I have had hundreds of posts, and today marked the 50,000th page view. 

As we approach the 80th Legislative Session in January, please stay tuned for legislative updates and alerts.

Thank you to all of you who have read this blog, and for all the favorable comments you have provided.  As always, you can sign up on the right to receive a weekly or an "as updated" email containing updates to this blog.

Today Marks this Blog's 1st Birthday

On August 6, 2005, I started this blog in an effort to communicate ongoing Spring Branch ISD activities to the community.  Since that first post which contained a link to my testimony before the Senate Education Committee, I have had hundreds of posts that have been seen by nearly 43,000 visitors.  As the Board's Legislative Liaison for the past 2 years, I have attempted to include legislative information on a frequent basis.

As we approach the 80th Legislative Session in January, please stay tuned for legislative updates and alerts.

Thank you to all of you who have read this blog, and for all the favorable comments you have provided.  As always, you can sign up on the right to receive a weekly email containing updates to this blog.