Page 8 The Advocate News (Wilton-Durant, Iowa) Thursday, March 22, 2012

OpiniOn

Taking baby steps into the technological world

When life gives you lemons make lemonade!

couple weeks ago, our lives were turned upside down when Shannon McDonald, a history teacher at Wilton High School, passed away. When that happens, everything that I planned to write in this space gets put on hold. While the term everything can literally mean a laundry list of topics, nothing else matters in that time of need for our community. However, as my piece on Mr. McDonald evolved, I was forced to make an interesting decision share some input from the Advocate News Facebook page when in fact, our Facebook page had not been properly introduced in print! In all honesty, I actually created an Advocate News Facebook page quite awhile ago. It did gain traction but as everything technologically evolves, including Facebook, I was notified that the page would be deleted due to a New way of creating business pages on the social networking site. That was an easy way to sort of wash my hands of the Facebook world, at least as far as the Advocate News was concerned. From an individual standpoint, I have been on Facebook for many years, even as far back as 2005, when you actually had to be a college student in order to create an account. Although Ive been a member for many years, I must admit I havent used it for much, besides keeping in touch with classmates, friends, etc. Yet as I have watched Facebook evolve and I think that is the best word to describe the activity there, as it is ever evolving I have begun posting more things to it in order to engage more with those Im connected with. A few months ago, AN readers actually began contacting me through Facebook with questions related to the newspaper. Perhaps it was a mother who recently had a baby and she wanted a birth announcement form. Or it could be someone who was given a local award and he/she wanted to know where she could email the photo. As more and more requests like that were made, the need for a new Advocate News Facebook page was born. About a month ago, I created a new page

for us here at the AN. Facebook business pages ade! To me, this is what Facebook has become now have a Like button, meaning that if you have an interest in our product, you can Like up to the minute updates from those around us on Facebook and you will then see when us. It was a great way to merge the Facebook world with our printed product. the AN page gets updated. In the everyday world of Facebook, Ive In laymans terms, we just want to be liked. As of about noon on Tuesday (March 20), we noticed people arent as interested in deep discussions, but post a picture of what haphad 151 Likes. I admit Im hesitant with this as it is very pened last night and you can create a long list difficult to find time to post things. Strong of comments. Case in point: I read an interesting story proponents of Facebook and what it can mean for your business say you should post about JC Penney recently changing its advertising campaign and things constantly so that posted it to my page. your readers are always As expected, I received seeing updates. In a little commentary. Yet perfect world I agree. one night while waitHowever, the practical ing for a pizza to be business related quesfinished at Caseys, I tion remains the same decided to walk down as the one with regard to the candy aisle for the newspaper websites first time in years. To How much content do By Derek Sawvell my surprise I saw Starwe give away for free? bust FaveREDS, a We dont have a strong Internet presence here at the AN and for package with nothing but red flavors. When I that, were behind. But luckily we have a very was a kid, I always loved the strawberry and strong readership and there is still demand for cherry chews. This package had those, along our product. While technology storms forward, with watermelon and fruit punch. My first instinct said buy this, despite the just know that we will do our best to come around but for now, the focus will remain with more than $1 cost (I miss the days of 50-cent candy). My second thought was that if I opened our print product. In the case of Mr. McDonald, I was so happy the package and took a photo of all those red we had a Facebook page created and active. candies and posted it to Facebook, it would I learned of his passing via Facebook and garner attention. I got home that night, posted a picture, and then made a post on our page asking former students to post a message or memory, give by the end of the night I had several people the year of their graduation from WHS and I writing in. Im not sure what that actually says said I may let some of them guide me through about our culture at the moment, but I wasnt surprised! The picture provided funny commy column. We received nearly 20 responses by the mentary. So here we are. The AN is out there in the end of that day. Nobody here had to pick up the phone or try to track anyone down. All it technological world. Its not a strong presence, took was the click of the mouse to make the but its a start. I will do my best to post some post and we had comments pouring in. I ended interesting pictures and/or teasers for what is my column that week with powerful messages inside the pages in that weeks issue. All you from former students of Mr. McDonalds who have to do is look us up on Facebook and Like us. were hurting just as much as I was. I have mountains of stories Ive printed Due to using Facebook posts in my column, I was forced to out our page before actually about Facebook over the years and have sevintroducing it. But as the phrase above states: eral column ideas about my views of the site. When life gives you lemons, make lemon- Those are for another time

Case in Point

*** Busted bracketBy now all of you know that again my NCAA bracket is busted. Of course the picks blew up in my face. I wrote last week about how fast I have to have them ready for print and upon coming home Tuesday night (March 13) I saw a report about Syracuse holding its starting center, Fab Melo, from competing in the tournament. Vital information for someone who had just publicly picked Syracuse to win the NCAA title. The good news is that as I write this, Syracuse is still alive in the Sweet 16. The bad news is that I only correctly predicted seven of the 16 teams left. Normally Id like to think Im good for 10 or more but not this year. My final four predictions are all still alive but Ive lost hope. We saw great efforts from Iowa State, who handily defeated defending champion Connecticut in the second round before falling to No. 1 overall seed Kentucky. We saw former Ames, Iowa teammates Harrison Barnes (North Carolina) and Doug McDermott (Creighton) face each other in the third round. Imagine if both of those talented young men would have taken their talents to an Iowa university! We had two No. 15 seeds (Lehigh over Duke and Norfolk State over Missouri) win second round games over No. 2 seeds. The wins happened just three hours apart and marked the first time a No. 15 had upset a No. 2 since Iowa State fell to Hampton in 2001. In the Feb. 20 edition of Sports Illustrated, a headline on the front page read Big Ten: The Best Damn Ball in the Land. Although this was only a month ago, SI was onto something. The Big Ten has four teams in the Sweet 16 (Michigan State, Indiana, Wisconsin and Ohio State). The Big East is the only other conference with four teams (Syracuse, Cincinnati, Louisville and Marquette). Big Ten teams are 9-2 in this years tournament. I still believe the Big East is a better league but it also fields more teams. The Big Ten was clearly the best pound-for-pound conference in the country this year. The state of Ohio has much to celebrate as it became the first state ever to field four teams in the Sweet 16 (Ohio State, Ohio, Cincinnati and Xavier).

'Give and take' process on education

Last week was the second funnel. Bills not passing out of one of the two chambers and a full committee in the other are declared dead for the session. Two of the high profile bills that did not make it through last week were the ban on traffic cameras and legalization of internet poker. One key item that I have worked hard to advance was the creation of an executive branch agency to educate, enforce, and improve Iowas open records and open meetings laws. This agency will not be an addition to the State budget since the dollars will be found in savings elsewhere in the budget. I am a strong proponent for more transparency and light in government at all levels. In fact Washington, D.C. could use stadium lights to expose the thousands of backroom details on both sides of the aisle. Budget and tax bills do remain alive as these committees are funnel-proof, although through the amendment process, re-referral, and a final standings bill, almost anything is possible, although not probable. There are a host of high profile issues remaining, including property tax reform and relief, TIF reform, mental health reorganization, fuel tax discussion and education to name several. The Education Bill has now passed the House and will hopefully be debated in the Senate. House Democratic Ranking Member, Sharon Steckman, and House Republican Chair, Royd Chambers, commented on the bipartisan and thorough process. Although not everyone is happy with the final product, this important issue advances. Beware of partisan extremists who do nothing but attack bills like this. The negative attacks and ideological lines in the sand are more about negative campaign rhetoric than advancing the will of Iowans to help our children. The Education bill is a work in progress. The Governor did not pass all of his initiatives. In fact I argued against several. Majority House Republicans By Rep. Jeff accepted eight minority Democratic amendments. This does not always happen in the process. The biggest changes made to the bill in the House were to return much of the decision making to the local school boards. The process works well with give and take. So what remains in the education reform bill? 1. Competency-based education initiatives. 2. Exemption of religious schools from curriculum that conflicts with their religious interests. 3. Development of new teacher and administrator evaluation systems. 4. Innovation Acceleration Fund. 5. Caps on online learning until a system can be organized to deal with open enrollment and funding issues. 6. One-stop shop for public education job postings.

Your Capitol Voice

7. Supplementary weighting for Project Lead the Way, AP classes, online classes, as well as continuation of community college courses in the high schools. 8. Improved and more relevant assessments. 9. End to exclusive use of seniority in layoff decisions. 10. Greater flexibility for home rule in local districts. 11. Intensive and greater emphasis on Kaufmann remediation. 12. School day and start date task forces. What initiatives did the House change from the Governors plan? 1. No expansion of the Iowa core. 2. No dramatic expansion of online learning. 3. Professional development funding remains. 4. Increase student teaching from 12 to 15 weeks. 5. More alternative licensure with education courses required. 6. No 3.0 GPA limitation to enter the profession. 7. No automatic retention of third graders below reading standards (more emphasis on remediation). 8. An attempt at a standard start date for schools failed on the floor. Governor Branstad deserves much credit for highlighting education and in the end,

Republicans and Democrats will react to his ideas and a bill will emerge. Capitol visitors (last two weeks): Duane and Maralee Dotson, Krista DeRiemacker, Atalissa; Curt Eldred, Clarence; Aaron Horman, Lowden; Chad Whaley, West Branch; Pam Laraba-Zierat, Becky Mills, West Liberty; Amber Nelson, Muscatine. Listening Post Schedule: March 31, 8 a.m., Iowa City Chamber; April 7, 9 a.m., Muscatine Community College. Contact Information: E-mail: jeff.kaufmann@legis.state.ia.us. Write: State Capitol Des Moines IA 50319. Call: 515-281-3221.

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