VIrtual Cupcakes for Cancer Re$earch

There are a lot of fun sites on the Internet, and many that can raise awareness and cash for good causes. For example, Electrolux (yep, the vacuum cleaner and appliance people) has a special site where you can build a cupcake and send it to a friend.

You choose the flavor, decorate it, and add a personal message. Then email it to anyone who deserves a little treat, or save it to your desktop to brighten your day.

When you send a virtual cupcake to a friend or loved one this February, Electrolux will donate a $1 to The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (with a minimum of $25,000 and a maximum of $30,000) as part of its $500,000 commitment to help fight ovarian cancer.

Calorie-free, too! I made this one just for you!

Electronic Communications

This week you are considering how you might use some electronic tools with parents, students, administrators and colleagues. Well, here's an interesting twist. Dr. Scott McLeod writes:

Parents are using online tools to push on schools

By Scott McLeod

The Washington Post recently published a really interesting article on the ability of well-connected parents to influence the decisions of their local school districts (hat tip to The Science Goddess). The term ‘well-connected’ refers to parents’ abilities to use online tools to communicate and mobilize (rather than to their connections to people with power).

Below are a few examples of parents pushing back on their local school systems. Parent tools include blogs, online petitions, and even administration countdown timers! I’ve linked to individual posts but you can click on the headers to see the blogs in their entirety.

• Has MCPS dropped American History from its curriculum?
• Change mayoral control? Beware the mushroom cloud!
• Media pig
• Wanted: a full-day kindergarten slot - do you feel lucky?

Be sure to also read about the New York City Department of Education ‘truth squad,’ whose job it is to ‘scour a group of 24 education Web logs, e-mail Listservs and Web sites in a hunt for factual errors and misinformation.’

Online communication technologies have greatly amplified the abilities of parents to voice their opinions and mobilize for desired change. Activist parents now have a bevy of new tools and strategies to help facilitate their agendas and they are not afraid to use them. School organizations are going to have to get used to this new state of affairs in which parent activism and criticism are more public, permanent, and far-reaching. I’m pretty sure that most school leaders haven’t really thought about this…