ISU Ed. Leadershop

 ISU Ed. Leadershop

By Dr. Ryan Donlan

Assistant Professor

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

As we near the end of our first school year of Community-Engaged Scholarship, I wanted to thank you for the over-3000 visits to our site. 

It is obvious that our topics have been of interest.  Your work has inspired our writing, as we get most of our ideas from our conversations with students, as well as our professional learning network.

In looking closely at the impact of our blog through feedback received, we are excited to see the development of our identity as a reflection of your needs and our content.  With your help, our site has become a marketplace of deep thinking for educational leaders.  It has practitioner appeal.

I like to think of our site nowadays as the ISU ED LEADERSHOP.  What is a leadershop?

A destination where we, as consumers of leadership, can select from an array of products, in the form of ideas, research, and best practice;

A destination where we can meet for conversation regarding the events of the day and those assuredly of tomorrow;

A destination where we can take something that we are doing and get advice on how to improve it.

I ran the name, ISU Ed. Leadershop, by faculty over the last week or so, as well as graduate students attending Commencement. 

Among the positive feedback received, one doctoral grad said that the name made sense.  Her favorite post was Common Sense, December 19, 2011.  Others liked the name’s similarity to the term, “Ed Leadership,” and felt that it had practitioner appeal, part of our ongoing mission as a Department of keeping our feet on the ground.

Colleague Dr. Will Barratt and I discussed whether a change of website address to reflect the new name would be prudent.  Both options, “to do” or “not to do” have merit, from my perspective. 

Weller (2012), in writing about higher-ed. blogs, noted that “good online impact” helps garner the interest of groups that support the work done in universities.  He added that quality on-line reputation also helps establish a global peer network, which helps writers through increased research collaboration.  Thanks to my colleague, Dr. Mary Howard-Hamilton, for passing along that article to me.

I’m thinking that an important part of one’s impact and reputation is a “known” URL.  Currently, we are getting visited far more often via “links” from other sources than via our URL.  I’ll think more on this.

As you move ahead with an exciting end of a successful school year with staff and students, please share with colleagues who may not know about us that the Indiana State University Department of Educational Leadership has an ISU Ed. Leadershop, an on-line destination with an array of topics for practitioner conversation -- quick, 5-minute "read's" that help put into perspective the challenges and opportunities in our profession. 

We offer a Twitter link to our articles each week and have a link as well on our Department Website.

Give us a read; talk with others.   We believe we’re helping our profession, because you have told us “just that.”

Thanks! 

You keep us relevant.

References

Weller, M. (2012, May 4).  The virtues of blogging as scholarly activity. The Chronicle of Higher Education, pp. 27-28.

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Dr. Ryan Donlan encourages your thoughts and perspective at any time.  He can be reached at www.twitter.com/ryandonlan or at ryan.donlan@indstate.edu.