Playing Catch-Up in the 21st Century

Because social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook require no economic investment and operate in real time, they are attractive and viable options for enabling open communications with shareholders. Information that could take hours to distribute via phone calls or days of paper trail can be distributed to all connected parties in the blink of an eye, greatly increasing efficiency. Social media is also a great way to offer convenient two way communications options to families, meeting them “where they are.” Most families are already using some form of social media, so it makes sense to provide information and promote positive branding where the parents are already, instead of expecting them to remember yet another login to another site that only provides one way communication. SMS messaging alert capabilities ensure that everyone can be kept in the loop and up to the minute. Opportunity appears at a moment, and disappears as quickly. A multi-faceted communications plan provides much better chances of recognizing and acting on opportunities for success.

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of leveraging tech channels of communications to allow for dynamic conversations is that it acknowledges the equal importance of all stakeholders for success of our students. It gives recognition and value to the parents and makes them more comfortable and less anxious, taking the paradigm from “us vs. them” to just us, all together, working to help students.

Currently I teach ELA 7 at a 7-12 high school in rural WV. There is no Facebook or Twitter page for our school. The only consistent internet outreach that I know of here is Edline, which is mostly static rather than dynamic. This school has been the target of several nasty internet smear campaigns by anonymous community members who seem to have personal vendettas with administration. In fact, before I applied to work here, I contacted people I knew who lived in the same town to get clarification on just what was going on, because I could find nothing positive on the internet. Thankfully, after getting the facts, I decided to apply. It turns out we have a Success school where all stakeholders care about positive outcomes, but it's hard to see from the outside looking in.

One of the things which really stuck with me from the readings for this module is the idea of differentiating communications to meet the needs of all stakeholders, just like we do with instruction. I can see how beneficial it can be to have integrated Twitter and FB accounts, but at a former school I worked in, the administrators made teachers shut down social media class pages because they claimed it constituted “improper contact” with students, and that we could be fired and/or sued. I am unclear whether this is really true, as they liked to threaten us with getting fired every week at our meetings. Although laws are always in flux, I think covering this in teacher prep programs would be beneficial, because then we would know if it is acceptable.

Recently we were introduced to Schoology at a training. I’ve started using it as much as possible and learning my way around it. I discovered it has a blog feature built in, and I plan on using it to communicate with stakeholders. I would love to help our school re-take control of our brand and build it up to be an accurate reflection of what we do. If we don’t take control of it, we’re letting others dictate our presence in the world, and that doesn’t make any sense.

I’m most comfortable discussing these issues with my team before taking them anywhere else, and plan on bringing them up at our next meeting to see how others feel. Integrating social media into our communications would help tremendously to strengthen and maintain relationships with stakeholders, and a strong community produces strong learners.