More than 2,000 administrators arrived in Phoenix to attend the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) Annual Convention, “Unleash the Extraordinary,” planned this year to focus on the importance of skilled leadership.

The challenge facing principals today, according to Steven Pophkal, NASSP president, require school leaders to “see each boy and girl as a unique individual, develop their respective strengths and to unleash the extraordinary in each child.”

In the first full day of the event, the convention offered a packed schedule of sessions to help attendees develop their leadership capacity. One in particular caught my eye: “A School Leader’s Introduction to Social Media.”

The session description talked about using Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to engage students by using the same means many use to talk with their peers.

This really hits close to home with us at Walsworth, because we are working hard with schools to help them harness this media to build awareness of the yearbook and in the process increase the number of students who buy them.

Ironically, the news media has been touting that Facebook will be the downfall of the yearbook. In reality, it very likely will play a role in the resurgence of this tradition.

Today’s Yearbook Video of the Week comes from the staff at Laurens-Marathon High School in Laurens, Iowa, who crafted a nice one-minute commercial to explain what the yearbook means.

The cool thing about this video is its simplicity – a well-done montage of students each expressing their thoughts on what they think the yearbook is.

Add in a good background soundtrack, and the sales message at the end, and you have a great video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Warmer weather is on the way, and you have either submitted your yearbook, are just over halfway done or somewhere in between. Your staff has done a lot of work, and it may be time for them to take a break. Taking even a few minutes to think about something other than yearbook can help everyone feel refreshed and approach work with a renewed sense of purpose.

Consider these quirky ideas based on national observances designated by different groups. Celebrate, rejuvenate and have some fun in the month of March with these ideas as the basis, or come up with your own.

• For Music in our Schools Month, sing the school song or school fight song at the end of each Friday’s staff meeting. Or, sing another song that you can adapt as your staff song.

• It’s International Hamburger and Pickle Month, so go out for hamburgers, have them brought in, or if they serve them in the cafeteria, eat lunch as a group.

• For Craft Month, have the staff make picture frames out of paper scraps, Popsicle sticks, felt or other materials, and frame their favorite photo that is not going into the book. Tape them to the computers.

• On a warm day, take your staff outside for peanut races to celebrate National Peanut Month. Use unshelled peanuts and have them carry them in spoons or on their forehead to the finish line. See who can build with them. When you are done, eat them, which is why you don’t want to do this in your classroom. Or, hide the peanuts around the room and let your staff search for them.

• Before the March Madness of NCAA college basketball begins, have everyone on staff pick a team name out of a bowl. Then together, keep track of which person’s team is in the lead.

• Potato Chip Day is March 14. Let staff bring in bags to share, as long as they clean up the crumbs.

• St. Patrick’s Day is on March 17. Have someone bring shamrock-shaped sugar cookies with green icing. Serve with green Kool-Aid. Or, buy 8 1/2-by-11-inch green foam sheets and have the class cut out shamrocks to wear as pins or tie through their shoelaces. Or, give an oral quiz, and the students who answer questions correctly get “gold coins” chocolate candy or treat bags of Lucky Charms cereal.

• Waffle Day and Pecan Day are on March 25. Have a before-school work session with frozen waffles, syrup and pecans. Bring milk.

The significant role that yearbooks play in recording a school’s history is certainly a point of view that we love to emphasize here at the Yearbooks Blog.

Here is an article from writer Elizabeth Pinkerton of the Elk Grove Citizen in Elk Grove, Calif., which discusses the same ideas.

Pinkerton also shares the story of the efforts of the local high school alumni website to get pages of old yearbooks scanned and online as a service to the local community.

Be sure to check in with the Blog and Walsworth Live later this week when school principals from all over the country come to Phoenix for the annual national convention for the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP).

Find out what’s happening on the NASSP exhibit floor, who’s coming through the Walsworth booth and other news.

Don’t miss it!

In this week’s yearbook Twitter update, we found more fun, interesting stuff and have a question.

We get an intriguing theory on the ramifications of smiling in your yearbook picture, and we’re left asking ourselves what exactly “chavvy” is?

@Alecsoelberg: Just found and finished looking through my high school yearbooks. There was something great about being innocent and naive 6-10 years ago.

@YMG10: Aww i was cleaning my room n started lookin at my yearbooks so many memories…. of people, moments, and just silly stuff.

@CFADBeachwood: Smilers in school yearbooks are more likely to have successful careers and marriages than their poker-faced peers.

@clairerees: Found my school yearbook! Lol. We were all so young… and chavvy!!

The Academy Awards are this weekend, and ABCnews.com decided to have a little fun by creating an image gallery with old yearbook photos of this year’s nominees.

Who was a cheerleader in high school? Who was on the soccer team? Who said they wanted to be “a preacher?”

It’s pretty fun to look back at the yearbook photos of these famous actors and actresses now, and see who looks the same, and who looks surprisingly different.

The yearbook video of the week as we roll into March comes from the yearbook staff at Kaneland High School in Maple Park, Ill.

You should be able to spot right away that the guys involved in the making of this commercial for the Kaneland yearbook seemed to have a good time. And, they really seemed to spread their dramatic wings.

Nice one guys, and the slap looked legit too!

Click here to view the embedded video.

It has been a pretty memorable year in the way of current events. There’s been several iconic news stories you will probably want to cover in the yearbook – Michael Jackson, Tiger Woods, Haiti, the Winter Olympics – just to name a few.

Covering these events properly means you need images that capture those moments and there are several services available, some of which are outlined here at walsworthyearbooks.com.

Walsworth yearbook staffs also have the option of purchasing one of the company’s national news packages – Year in Review, ceBuzz or Retrospective. National and international news, entertainment and sports from the year are all covered.

It’s been a memorable, news-making year. Make sure your yearbook reflects that.

The Spring National High School Journalism Convention in Portland is now less than two months away and JEA/NSPA announced some important updates this week for those who are planning on attending.

There are new design workshops and special training sessions available, which you can learn about at the NSPA’s Portland convention blog.

There’s also valuable information at the JEA/NSPA blog about critiques and registration. Be sure to check it out!