A brave new world: blogging, tweeting and Facebooking

You read that right; a professional writer just used "Facebooking" as a verb.

This is the inaugural post of EduSlate, TASA's new blog that aims to bring our readers insight into what's going on at the Capitol and around the state in the world of education policy.

EduSlate is just one of the new ways TASA is working to bring you up-to-the-minute news as well as in-depth analysis on education issues and how decisions made in Austin could affect local school districts.

My position here as TASA's director of communications and media relations is a new one, and a sign of TASA's commitment to up its game in communicating with members, the media and the public.
We're making several changes that will help get information out faster and to a wider group of people.

Two of those changes include a new presence on the social networking sites Twitter and Facebook. Follow us @tasanet on Twitter and find us on Facebook by searching for Texas Association of School Administrators.

We'll no longer be sending out the weekly TASA XPress, a subscription-only publication sent via email that highlights the week's legislative news, and we're also axing our "Legislative Alerts" which went out via email when news dictated.

Instead, we hope to be more timely by posting both breaking news and longer analysis pieces on the "Capitol Watch" section of our Web site. You can find it on one of the green tabs across the top of the home page.

Each time we post a Capitol Watch update, we'll also tweet the news on Twitter with a link back to the full story on Capitol Watch. We encourage all our members to sign up for a Twitter account and follow us. You can even sign up to receive a text message on your phone each time we post a new tweet.

We'll still send out an email, called a TASA Alert, to all our members if news happens that we think you should know about immediately.

And of course, news from Capitol Watch will be teased in the ever-popular TASA Daily, with an opportunity to link back to our Web site to read the full story.

Our goal is to provide information on several different platforms, allowing our members to use whatever tool works best for them.

We do want you to consider our Web site the primary spot for news and analysis of what's happening in Austin and what it means for school leaders, teachers and students.

And, personally, I hope you become addicted to EduSlate and make habit of looking for new posts to get the inside scoop on how TASA is working for you in Austin.