How Can Educational Leaders Utilize "Blogs"
Educational leaders can use Blogs to share findings and ask questions of other educational leaders.  Blogging allows administrators to collaborate with administrators from other campuses, as well as other districts to add to their inquiry and help find solutions to their problems.  Many administrators feel isolated on their campuses, so, blogging is a tool that will allow administrators to reach out to their peers for ideas and support.  It is also a way to share successes from their own action research projects.

Action research is a "hands on" approach to research that involves reflection and action.  It can clarify and diagnose a practical situation that needs to be improved or a practical problem that needs to be resolved.  The action researcher becomes a collaborator by investigating their own problems which makes them more likely to facilitate change based on the knowledge they generate.  Theories and knowledge are generated from research grounded in the realities of educational experience (Dana, 2009).  It helps administrators reflect on what is happening on their campuses more often than when they relied on outside sources for research.  This is important because they are involving themselves in finding those solutions rather than relying on others.  Principals can lead campus improvement committees in directed and campus specific areas to find solutions to campus specific concerns.  For years schools and districts have brought in outsiders to perform teacher in-service training.  Many times the tips and techniques taught by these outsiders may or may not have practical applications on that campuses issues.  By conducting active research teachers and administrators can collaborate and identify areas specific to their campus and generate real solutions to facilitate change or improvement.  "Rather than someone else telling me what I should be doing to my teachers and to my students, through engagement and inquiry, I'm learning with my teachers and with the students in my building by closely taking a really hard look at what I'm already doing and what I need to do to change it" (qtd. in Dana, 2009).  Action research puts theory and knowledge into practice by using practical experience from the practitioner.

Dana, N.F. (2009)  Leading with Passion and Knowledge: The Principal as Action Researcher.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.