International schools (especially ours) have lots of turnovers. I guess that’s what happens when there you sign 2 year contracts and you live in a desert. Last Spring we were invited to an AIS New Hire Blog. It was a great place to ask questions, get advice and bounce ideas off of each other (moving abroad is kind of a big deal). When I was asked to help with the set-up of the blog this year…I said heck yes!
Some details:
- we use a free wordpress.com blog.
- the blog is private and password protected, by invitation only.
- the three tech coaches and assistant principals are the blog administrators.
- the new hires are authors.
- the AIS staff correspondents are followers.
- new hires post questions (blog posts) and AIS correspondents post answers (comments).
Here’s how it works (permanently on the left side-bar of the blog):
Our static pages:
- A Welcome letter from the 4 Assistant Principals (in charge of orientation)
- Bios (with pictures & email address) from the current AIS staff who have been selected to be correspondents (not the entire staff)
- Questions by Category (with links & explanations)
- Important Information including the 2013-2014 calendar and a detailed tutorial (how to sign up for the blog, create posts, find questions, etc.)
- Photo Albums (including apartments and staff travel experiences)
Currently we have almost the entire new cohort signed up and asking away! We’ve had a great response from the blog layout (thanks to Jeff and his budding photoshop skills for the header!). They’ve also really enjoyed the experience of getting their burning questions answered. I would highly recommend and new hire blog for any international school 🙂
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