Daily Archives: September 7, 2011

Katonah NY Homes | Post-Storm, K-L Superintendent, Teachers Ready for Start of School Year – Bedford-Katonah, NY Patch

The halls of the six buildings in the Katonah-Lewisboro school district will be abuzz with students Wednesday morning, but on Tuesday, excitement was already mounting as teachers and administrators gathered for Superintendent’s Day.

It was shortened into an abbreviated morning program to give teachers as much time as possible to prepare for opening day. Power outages caused by Tropical Storm Irene left teachers like Holly Kellogg—who planned to unpack art supplies at the high school as soon as the presentations were over—scrambling to ready classrooms.

Sean Murphy, a veteran educator of 19 years, said he had a few jitters.

“The first three weeks are harder than the next 37,” said the middle school special education teacher. “There’s a lot of minutiae involved in getting things done in the beginning, including a lot of communication with parents and getting students used to new routines.”

Students aren’t the only ones adjusting to changes this year.

“We have a new principal, a new superintendent, a new special services director and we’re implementing RTI (response to intervention)—there’s a lot going on,” said Susan Hirsch, a resource room teacher at Katonah Elementary School. “But it’s exciting. Today is all about setting the tone and and the first few weeks are all about building relationships.”

Teachers heard a presentation on the new teacher evaluation system that will be rolled out this year for teachers (and their principals) in grades 4 – 8, then filed into the high school auditorium for the superintendent’s address, delivered for the first time by Paul Kreutzer.

Kreutzer, hired last spring amid teacher union protests, tried to shed any remaining controversy over his appointment, and urged teachers to shift their attention from any spotlight he had attracted toward students and the year ahead.

“I’ve been the center of attention,” he said to a packed auditorium. “You can find me pretty handily on Google, I’ve been in the New York Times and in GQ and on the internet more times than I care to be.”

He shared an anecdote about an event that occurred during his senior year of high school, when he defended a boy with special needs, named George, from another student named Dewey, who was bullying him. At the time, Kreutzer shouted at the bully, diverting attention from George to himself. It worked—his fellow seniors also called out their support and left George alone. But instead of praising his actions, an administrator who witnessed the incident criticized Kreutzer for not helping sooner.

“My attitude changed that day. Had I always had the power to make a difference?” he asked. “We must do our jobs exceedingly well—how many Georges, Dewey’s might we meet? I’ve been the center of attention—but we need to divest it from ourselves and move it our children.”

He said his hope for the year was that they would all grow and share together as a family, and expressed a shared pride over the work the teachers accomplish.

“It’s going to be an exceptional year,” he said. “And if you have a George moment, standing alone doing the right thing at the right time and for the right reasons—I’ll have your back.”

The program included a district tradition—”the bowl ceremony,” in which teachers and staff with 25 years of service are recognized. This year, Linda Bodkin, Catherine Miller, Enid Linden, Pat Rappaport and Marion Perri were honored.

Jim Panzer, a high school physics teacher who had yet to unpack lab equipment in his classroom, said he was motivated by Kreutzer’s words.

“I liked how he related his past to the work we do here,” he said. “I’m also excited to see the kids tomorrow—they are what makes this district the best place to work.”



Pound Ridge Real Estate | Time Saving Tips For Bloggers

Time Saving Tips For Bloggers

Aug 20, 2011 by

Blogging can be a time intensive job and its important for bloggers to be able able to know how to save time when it comes to blogging.  There are many tools for bloggers out there to help them save time, and saving time allows you to concentrate your time on more profitable tasks.  As the old saying goes time is money.  So lets save some time to get you some more money.

Billing

Paypal has made some some significant changes to their invoicing system that makes sending invoices to your customers as a contact blogger or copywriter much easier for you and your customers.  Still there are several other options for people who want to offer regular mail invoices and other forms of payment from one provider.  One of these options is from a company called Freshbooks which is one of the best providers of complete billing solutions for free lancers online.

Listening To Podcasts While Blogging

If you have a mind that can handle when listening to information while your writing Listening to podcasts about niches that your write about while typing content can be a great time saver.  It can also help you stay on top of the news that you often write about.  There are podcasts covering every sort of niche available from technology, to making money, to weather to mental illness.  While your typing content you can have your ears open listening to the latest news and discussions on your niche.  Who knows you may find something to add to the piece that you are currently writing.

Another thing that in my mind helps me save time is listening to music.  This helps you save time as it keeps your mind zoned away from outside stimulation keeping your mind on the job.  Music is one of the best tools for a blogger that is stressed, it helps you keep your mind on the job at hand.

Pre Schedule Posts

If your on a roll you can preschedual your posts for future dates.  If you got your blogging mojo going setting posts for future dates is a good way to be able to get things done right now and open up your time for other tasks and projects you may be working on.  Plus putting all your posts out there at once can actually lower the traffic compared to posts that your space out the timing of the posts.

Whiteboard

Keep a task list of what you have to do for the day on a whiteboard.  This gives you a visual reminder of what you need to be doing for the day and allows you to cross out what is already done.  You are much more likely to get the work done that you have to get done if you can see what you need to get done.

Time Is Money

Remember just like any other business out there with blogging time is money.  The more time that you spend on tasks that don’t get you money the less money you will bring in.

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Armonk Real Estate | Updated List of Social Media Corporate Buyers: Corporate Social Strategist « Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing

I’ve updated the list of Corporate Social Strategists, for 2011, see it here.

These are the hard working open leaders within corporations that are making cultural change using new technologies to connect with customers and employees. It’s important to salute their efforts.

I wanted to first apologies for my delay in updating, but I’ve gotten around to it now. To submit, please carefully read the post, and follow the submission guidelines, which includes leaving a comment. I responded to all comments after reviewing the submission, so you can see verification.

The folks added in this round include:

  • Christina Sponselli -Director of Social Media University of California, Berkeley
  • Laurie Meisel Manager -Social Media and Digital Marketing McGraw-Hill Construction
  • Tiffany Winman – Community and social media strategist IBM
  • Colin Burns -Social Media Manager Match.com
  • Mike McCready -Web & Social Media Strategist Lethbridge College
  • Gregory Gerik -Global Social Media and Interactive Strategist 3M
  • Shane Barnhill -Digital Strategy Manager Honeywell
  • Cindy Kim – Director of Marketing and Social Media JDA Software
  • Desiree Porcaro -SEO / Social Media Specialist Ultimate Software
  • Alex Romano – Social Media Business Analyst Cisco Systems
  • Kelly LaVaute -Social Media / Community Manager Quicken Loans
  • Debbie (Schultz) -Svoboda Interactive Marketing and Social Media Pabst Brewing Company
  • Alana Taylor -Ecommerce Marketing Manager Panasonic

To see recent hires, see the “on the move” series I’ve been maintaining since 2007, since I had this role at Hitachi.  If you really want to understand this role, please read our research report Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist.  Thanks to Anita Wong for her help in vetting submissions, next we will scour the on the move posts to pull out the submissions and add to list that fit the criteria.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011 at 8:06 am and is filed under Career, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.