Editor's Note

Happy Birthday, DD!

A year ago this month, we launched the first issue of Education Week’s Digital Directions, or DD, as the editors and writers here affectionately refer to it now.

In the first issue, we told you that our goal was to build a publication—both in print and online—whose sole purpose was to help ed-tech leaders do their jobs better. We promised to do our best to make all the content we produce engaging and useful.

Based on the feedback we have gotten from readers over the past year, we feel that we are heading in the right direction. The cover stories for the fall and winter issues, “E-Mail Alert: Revised Federal Archiving Rules Raise Legal, Logistical Challenges” and “Finding Your Way in a Data-Driven World,” are emblematic of the engaging and useful approach to coverage of the ed-tech field that we are trying to pull off. (And if you missed a chance to read those stories, they are available in the DD online archives.)

This issue’s cover story, “Balancing the Good and Bad of Social-Networking Sites,” builds on this approach by examining how schools are trying to balance the benefits and drawbacks of social-networking sites. And an article in this issue on the ethical dilemmas many ed-tech leaders face in dealing with vendors is chock full of practical tips for making the right decisions.

What’s more, we have continued to upgrade the design of the print magazine and the Web site to make them more navigation-friendly and visually inviting.

The Web channel for Digital Directions, www.digitaldirections.org, was launched this winter and includes a lot of great content about news developments and trends in the the ed-tech world. Recently, we also revamped and relaunched our monthly ed-tech e-newsletter under the Digital Directions name.

But as we look beyond Digital Directions’ first birthday, we realize we have much more work to do. Because the landscape of educational technology changes so rapidly and so often, we’ll dedicate ourselves to providing you with useful information as quickly as possible, while also maintaining the high quality of the content. This is sometimes a tricky balancing act, as speed and quality are many times at odds with each other. But we feel up to the challenge of achieving that balance.

We would like your feedback on what you think we can do better, because when DD turns two next year, we want to celebrate another year of improvements.

Vol. 02, Issue Spring/Summer 2008, Page 5

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