Get Your Staff Development Here!

Be ready for a live blog from our Media Specialist Staff Development on Tuesday, November 4.
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There’s No Cover Charge for CoverItLive

So I promised you I would blog about CoverItLive when I was all in love with it last week and I was so busy live blogging my heart out from COMO, but then I came back to the reality of school and I had to blog myself silly on my other blog about the Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl, and you never got to hear about my love affair with CoverItLive. Well, now here I am to tell you all the juicy details of my sordid affair with CoverItLive! Fact number one: be careful or you’ll spill your guts out to a live audience or say ridiculous stuff (remind you of anyone you know–me perhaps???) before you have a chance to self-edit. Fact number two: you’re published in real time, just like an instant message, so your readers–surely you have readers, don’t you?–can read your post as fast as you can type it. Fact number three: You can save pictures, video, ads, or audio clips prior to your live blog (or even Google as you go–there’s a built-in search tool) and then toss them in whenever you’re ready. Fact number four: they even have simple polls you can create on the spot to ask your audience–kind of like on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” Fact number five: you can even answer your listeners’ questions live. I did three CoverItLive live blogs (you can see them posted here if you’re into that sort of thing) when I was at COMO and it was fun! I pretended I was a real reporter. You could use it to take notes in a meeting or conference, or if you’re important (OK, let’s face it, if you were important, would you be reading my blog?) you could use it to cover political, television, or sports events. Whenever you see news happening, blog about it live to your readers. Set up your account in advance, which only takes a few seconds, then you can start a live blog in another few seconds. Literally. Then your blog is posted live a sentence or two at a time. Your audience sees the exact time you post each entry. Suppose you make a mistake? You can always go back later and edit the blog. If you look at the blogs I’ve posted here, you can probably tell that I edited one of them and did not edit the other two. That’s why it looks like one was written by a human and the other two were written by giraffes. With poor typing skills. And no spelling ability. Which brings up the point that just because your blog is posted live doesn’t mean it is ephemeral. It’s still there on your blog, available for an instant replay whenever your readers want to view it again. Which of course they will. You know you’re irresistible. Just like me. And CoverItLive.

Teacher Retirement live from COMO!

OK, here goes another live blog on Teacher Retirement from Georgia COMO

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Free! Alternatives to Expensive Technology Live from COMO

This was a live post from COMO, the Georgia Council of Media Organizations convention in Athens which I am attending this week. The presentation features Andrew Shuping from Mercer University discussing Free Alternatives to Expensive Technology. The presentation was posted live via CoveritLive. I’ll blog later on this cool free Web 2.0 tool! Click on the link to view my live post from the presentation.
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