Leading a School Using Great Technology

Compare Bounce Rates by Traffic Source in Google Analytics

Joseph Ollis — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:07:52 +0000

In this how-to video for schools, I compare bounce rates from PrivateSchoolReview.com and Facebook.com

A Good Early Review of Apple’s iBook Author

Joseph Ollis — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:23:19 +0000

My friend Lori has a great review of Apple’s new iBook Author and its potential in Education. Read it here

QR Codes and Direct Mail

Joseph Ollis — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:18:19 +0000

In a recent post about Direct Mail, I discussed how I measure its success by the hits on our website on the days that people receive the mail. You may have noticed that I included a QR code on the reverse part of the postcard.

I have heard all the rage about how qr codes drive people to your website. I was skeptical at best about whether anyone would use this in the community that I work. I don’t see as many people here with internet focused cell phones as I have in other locations. In fact, I guessed that no one would use the code.I am glad to admit I was wrong. We had three people access the URL on the qr code

If you read the other article, you would see that 30 hits on our website is the best day of the year. To think that over the course of a week, three people scanned the code to access our page. This is pretty nice in perspective. Below are five points that I would like to present as background information to make the qr code effective, some of which I have learned after the fact.

Five Things I have Learned about What You Should do with QR Codes

There are a lot of services that offer qr code generation. I used code.kaywa.com. A key to remember is to download the code in a bigger size than you will use on your publications. This will allow you to have the clarity you will need.
Use a unique url for the code. I created a unique page on our website about our Open House specifically for people who accessed it using the qr code. The above google analytics page is from that url.
The design of the page to which the code points must be mobile friendly. Remember that people who use qr codes will most likely be using their phones to access the page. When you test your qr code, see what it looks like on your phone. I would definitely have it tested on an iphone and an android phone.
The code must fit in your marketing plan. Read this article about simple ways to include the codes, http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/1767-qr-codes-business.html
Remember to test the code before you finalize your print job. A blurry code will not work well and could cost you money.

What is the Best Time to Post to Twitter/Facebook?

Joseph Ollis — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:49:46 +0000

What is the best time to communicate? This article shows the data.

http://socialtimes.com/infographic-reveals-the-best-times-to-post-to-twitter-facebook_b67570

HTML Course Server

Joseph Ollis — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:07:16 +0000

Teaching is Fun

Working at a small school sometimes has its privileges. For the next few weeks I am able to teach a short course in HTML for 8th graders. Why teach HTML? HTML seems to be a tool for many occasions (even this blog) today and my students have a lot of fun with it.

Server / Client Setup Ingredients

Server Operating System: Ubuntu Linux
Server Software: Apache 2
Server File Share Software: Samba
Client Operating System: Windows 7
Client HTML Editior: Notepad++ on Windows
Client Image Editor: Gimp

Server / Client Recipe

Installed the apache2 and samba software on the ubuntu machine
Create the /students directory where you want to in ubuntu.
Create a students group
Add a user for each student to the ubuntu machine using the adduser command setting their group to students upon addition.
Create a directory for each student under the /students, setting the owner to the student, the group to students, and the permissions to read/write for the user, read for the group, and read for the global
Add the /students directory as a samba share
Use the smbpasswd command to add each student to samba permissions
Point apache2 to access the /students directory.
Then on the student machine, add a mapped network drive to the samba share using the student’s samba user
Create the index.html and let the students go

So what do you use? Share in the comments

Things I am trying – Trello

Joseph Ollis — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:23:06 +0000

Trello is a personal and team organization software. www.trello.com The nice part of the software is its ability to quickly build a team and move tasks and projects from person to person. So far I am enjoying using it to finalize my plans for an upcoming Open House. You can see a screenshot from the program below.

To post tuition online? that is the question.

Joseph Ollis — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:14:00 +0000

For my friends, I would love to get your feedback on the appropriateness and effectiveness of posting your tuition online. Share in the comments.

Direct Mail for Your (Private) School?

Joseph Ollis — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:07:12 +0000

Does it feel like Direct Mail a big hole in your budget? How do you even know if it works? Can’t we just use online marketing to do the same thing?

Like many of you, I have been very skeptical about the long term opportunities for print marketing. I have forsaken general newspaper advertising and have given up on the phonebook. But Direct Mail continues to be a part of my marketing plans. This post will dissect the current campaign that I am running and discuss what I believe are some essentials to an effective campaign.

Numbers First

The ultimate goal of any campaign is to get families in the door. Every campaign must be judged by how many people contact the school or attend an event. Without these numbers, all of our marketing is without merit. The frustration is that even with these numbers, we are not always certain about which part of our marketing brings people in the door.

A second method for evaluating a direct mail campaign is your website statistics. Below I have two views from Google Analytics about my website to the value of a direct mail piece.

In the first view, you see the last couple of months of data about visits to my website. On December 1st, we updated the design of our website, and had a lot of visits that day. The last day of the chart is the day that my direct mail piece went home. You can see that we had more visits than average on that day. But a better evaluation tool is below, it measures page views.

Generally speaking, prospective families will wander about your website and view a lot of different pages. In this second view, you see how our page views were very high on the day that people received the direct mail piece. I would say that this direct mail piece would be evaluated as very effective at driving people to learn more about our school through our website.

So What Makes a Good Campaign?

Here are my three things I believe are essential to a good direct mail campaign?

Have a Purpose – I would always have a purpose to my campaign. For my school, Direct Mail is too expensive to send on a monthly basis. In the campaign, I was focused on an Open House that we are having in February. The purpose also included a call to action. I wanted people to d know that we want them to call the school or visit our website.
Have a Great List – Direct mail companies should be evaluated by their ability to get your mail to the people who might enroll their children. The campaign was focused on this grouping:
- People who have children between the ages of 3 and 13 (I work at a Pre-K through 8th Grade School)
- Households with a combined income of $40,000 (We have very low tuition)
- Households within driving distance of our school (Don’t be scared to venture out of your town, we all have people who drive 30 minutes to school)
- Households who eat pizza once a week (just a joke)
Don’t be timid when working with these companies, they sometimes will try to upsell you a bigger list than you need. Remember that each name will cost you at least 20 cents to send the mail.
Have a Great Design – The design of a direct mail piece has to stand out. It has to catch people’s attention when they receive it in the mail. We all know that the majority of this stuff is thrown away, so you must have something that will attract the eye, and keep your piece out of file #13. The next two pictures show the piece that we sent.

Waiting for the Results

As we wait to evaluate the end result of the direct mail piece, I continue to see the value in targeted Direct Mail for our school, even in tight budgetary times. If we reach just one family with our mail, then we will have provided double the income than the expenses that we incurred in producing and mailing this piece.

Visual Design in the Classroom

Joseph Ollis — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:21:14 +0000

Each morning, when I was in high school, I experienced a great teacher with a great room. Mr. Yutzy’s room was unique, it had collages, old desks, and even a clean black board. The collages connected you with the concepts that would be taught in the classroom. Mr. Yutzy’s collages were bleeding edge to us and it was 1995.

Much has transpired since then. The information explosion has created classrooms where our teachers can struggle to stand out from “informational noise”. They can also feel the stress of appearing outdated or outmoded, even if they graduated within the last ten years. In fact, I would venture to say that very few of the current generation of experienced teachers had professors that spent any time on document design, web design, or even classroom design.

But many of us believe that our students are increasingly visually acute. They are more aware and motivated by the quality of visual cues. How do we prepare our teachers, to compete in this marketplace of design?

Have thoughts? Share in the comments.

What Norm Abrams can Teach us about Technology in the Classroom

Joseph Ollis — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:40:26 +0000

The Technology as a Tool Metaphor Revisited

I must admit that I am a big fan of Norm Abrams and the New Yankee Workshop, a public television show. The show is very simple. Norm builds amazing wood furniture and you watch him build it. It is definitely not the most emotional or exciting show on television, but I am enthralled. This is funny to me because I have never built anything like what he does, but I love to watch great craftsman build things.

If you haven’t seen the show, click here to watch an episode on youtube.

While watching the show, you will quickly learn that Norm has a lot of tools. He has tools for every occasion and for every need. As we think about technology and the cliché metaphor of “Technology is a Tool”, maybe we can look to Norm and see some ways that we can reevaluate our usage of Technology in the classroom.

Norm Mixed Tools with Ease

As mentioned before, Norm had a lot of tools. Some of his tools were cutting edge power tools and glues and some tools were traditional like his use of chisels. If you watch the show, Norm will quickly transition between the tools, using the best tool for the job.

As teachers we can make the mistake of obsessing about technology. We want to see it successful in our classrooms and we spend a lot of time developing technology infused lessons and materials. But we must avoid using technology in a way that it overtakes the other wonderful tools that we have developed professionally over time. Our tools must work in concert with one another for us to have efficient success.

Norm had a Detailed Plan

The beginning of the show would introduce you to the furniture piece that was to be built. The show would then move to the very basic wood boards that were to be used. While cutting the boards, Norm would tell you the exact depth to cut the wood. As the piece came together he would explain the grain of the wood and how to interact with it. While finishing the wood he would explain the drying process and how long it would take. At the end of the show, Norm would tell you how to request a copy of the plans to be sent to you.

In our classrooms, we have to have the same outcome based approach to our lessons. We must know exactly what we want to teach and how we will evaluate our lesson as the lesson progresses. Our use of technology must only be measured by the success of the students on learning the curriculum.

In support of this, we must also have a full understanding at the beginning of the lesson of how to actually use the technology most effectively. (How many bad powerpoints have you endured?)

Norm Took His Time

Sometimes the projects on The New Yankee Workshop took multiple days. It was always interesting to me to here Norm say “Good Morning” four times in a show. This was always a reminder that great craftsmanship takes time.

Norm Spent Money

The project might only cost $500 to build, but Norm probably will use in excess of $10,000 worth of tools to build the project. We have a great dilemma in funding the best tools in our classrooms, but just like Norm,if we want ensure the finished project is done, we will need some powerful tools.

At the End of the Show

When the show was done, it was always great to see Norm as he showed the piece off. I remember him sitting in an Adirondack Chair or opening a new chest of drawers. We must also enjoy the work that we do, and celebrate its completion.