How can high school media teachers more effectively use technology in their teaching and advising?

That’s the question colleague Judy Robinson and I will be helping our class of high school media teachers decide in a grad course we’re teaching this week at Indiana University.

Judy and I taught a teaching with technology class at IU’s High School Journalism Institute two years ago. As we have planned the updated course for this summer, we’ve discussed how much has changed with technology in just two years.

Two years ago, if an adviser wanted to put your publication online , the best option was to create a website. But that required quite a bit of technology expertise and software (Dreamweaver or XHTML coding). Another challenge was arranging for server space — typically through the school district — to post the materials. Another option was using the ASNE High School Journalism website as the content management system.

But since then, blogging software has improved dramatically. WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr are some of the blogging sites that provide great options for creating an online media outlet — and for free.

So that will be the focus this week — working with the teachers for each to create and develop a blog site and create their own content.

Both Judy and I read blogs and maintain our own blogs, so we have examples, advice and stories to share. We’re both looking forward to seeing what the teachers create this week.