Twitter

Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation

I’m an Educator, What Should I Tweet about?

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Craig Kemp

As an educator that is addicted to using social media for professional learning, I wish I had a list of things to tweet about when I first started out.

This week I was inspired by @shiftparadigm and his list of Personal Rules for Twitter and a list of what a teacher should tweet about (anonymous, but first seen tweeted by @justintarte).

So in an effort to help those Educators on Twitter, here is my list of 9 things that educators should tweet about:

  1. Be yourself and show people that you are real! Tweet about what inspires you and what happens in your day to day life as an educator
  2. Create don’t consume by sharing images – people love to see what your classroom, school, project, activity etc. looks like so they can get inspiration
  3. Create don’t consume by sharing links to articles that you write or articles that you have read. Nearly every educator I know loves a good nighttime read
  4. Quotes and thoughts related to education (always remember to link to the author)
  5. Ask questions and give answers – tweet responses directly to people and ask questions if you are unsure
  6. Get involved in Twitter Chats – tweet your answers to questions and your thoughts to other educators tweets
  7. Support other educators by giving a ‘favourite’ or a ‘retweet’ to their posts. This shows that you appreciate and enjoy what they have tweeted
  8. Be positive – tell people how much you love their work, demonstrate positivity in everything you tweet. You can still be constructive and be passionate but always be respectful – like we tell our students “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it!”
  9. Suggest other educators to follow – you can do this at any stage but I like to make use of #FF (Follow Friday) where people share their favourite connections

I hope this list goes someway to help other educators get involved in Twitter. It has changed my life as an educator and as a leader and I hope that you get involved and utilise the power of a PLN.

Here are some other links to my other Twitter related posts that may be of interest:

 

This post originally appeared on Mr. Kemp’s blog, and was republished with permission.

Read all of our posts about EdTech and Innovation by clicking here. 

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Craig is a New Zealand born educator with over 10 years experience both in the classroom and in leadership. He is an enthusiastic, 21st century change agent that is passionate about every aspect of education and making a difference.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation

Why School Leaders Should Never Get Into a Twitter War With Kanye West

Responding impulsively to negative comments on social media will only make the problem worse.

By Luvelle Brown

Kanye West is at it again.

The Grammy-winning rapper turned ubiquitous social media bully has a knack for getting under people’s skin. First it was former girlfriend Amber Rose. Then Taylor Swift. Kanye’s 21.7 million (and counting) Twitter followers can hardly wait to see who, or what, ends up in his online crosshairs next.

So far-reaching is the rapper’s social sniping that President Obama himself has weighed in, calling Kanye a “Jack#$!” for the way he lashed out at Ms. Swift.

As a school district superintendent who uses social media daily to engage his community, I can’t help but cringe every time one of Kanye’s social digs lights the Twitterverse on fire.

Love Kanye or hate him, it makes no difference to Kanye–so long as Kanye keeps trending.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Everyone has made mistakes. I just make them in public.</p>&mdash; KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) <a href=”https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/712426781245050880″>March 22, 2016</a></blockquote>

<script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

Only in Hollywood
That sort of a mea culpa might fly if you’re an egomaniacal rap superstar with a nose for controversy. But making mistakes in public is exactly the kind of folly that lands school leaders and other public figures in hot water.

If you’re reading this thinking, “More evidence to steer clear of social media,” you’re missing the point. There’s a reason that Kanye’s social media missives make headlines. Research shows that parents and students increasingly communicate online. A recent Pew Research study found that 79% of parents get “useful information” via their social networks. A similar Pew study found that 65% of adults use social media, a tenfold increase from a decade ago. The same study found that social media use is nearly ubiquitous among teens and college-age students.

The majority of your community is already on social media. They’re asking questions and sharing information–true or otherwise–about your schools. And they expect you to be there too. The question isn’t whether you should use social media; it’s how to use it responsibly to meet the changing needs of your school community.

At Ithaca City, where I serve as superintendent, we use social media daily to connect with parents and students on a range of topics, from classroom teaching to school policy. There are risks. Every community has a Kanye or two. When you witness parents and others sniping at staff or spreading misinformation about your schools, there’s a tendency to engage without thinking. Tools such as Twitter and Facebook make putting your foot in your mouth easy.

Resist the urge to get down in the dirt with community members and others who use social media to stir up trouble. Monitor your social networks for controversial chatter and misinformation, and think before you post. There might be instances where the conversation is better conducted offline, via email, or in another setting that you can effectively control.

At Ithaca City, we use a solution called Let’s Talk! from K12 Insight. The cloud-based technology makes it possible to invite feedback from parents and community members through our district website. It also allows us to monitor our social networks from a single location. We know the instant someone mentions our schools or teachers online, giving us the time we need to a plan a smart response.

Next time someone calls you or your schools out on social media, don’t pull a Kanye. Take your time. Think. Then post. It’s simply amazing the difference a thoughtful response can make.

Looking for more ideas about how to use social media to engage your school community? Get more advice from me and other educators in The School Leader’s Definitive Guide to Navigating Social Media.

Luvelle Brown is superintendent of the Ithaca City School District in upstate New York.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation

Schools Should Shout Their Success Stories from the Rooftops

 

Consumer and social media are adept at sharing negative news about education. Here’s how administrators and teachers can get the good news out there, too.

A guest post by Christopher Piehler

When it comes to covering K-12 education, the consumer media does a fantastic job of telling the bad news. I understand why this is the case: Publications need to make money, and headlines like “FBI Seizes LAUSD Records Related to Troubled iPad Program” will always grab more readers’ eyeballs than, say, “Class Full of Happy Students Learns to Multiply.” But if you judged the success of this country’s public schools only by looking at “above the fold” articles in major newspapers and magazines, you would believe that K-12 education is nothing but one crisis after another. And from talking to educators and administrators around the country, I know that this is not true.

There is good news coming out of America’s classrooms every day. The challenge for schools and districts is to make their positive voices heard above the negative noise coming from consumer (and social) media. How can they do this? Here are four tips.

Know Your Story

Educational leaders need to shout their success stories from the rooftops, but before you speak up, you need to be clear about what your story is.

For example, through one of our clients I recently met Dr. Genevra Walters, the superintendent of Kankakee School District in Illinois, whose motto is “The transition to adulthood starts in preschool.” Dr. Walters backs this up by having each general ed grade in K-8 focus on a different career. So Kankakee’s story is clear: “We are the district that does everything we can to find the right career for our students, starting when they are five or six years old.”

Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that Dr. Walters herself is a graduate of Kankakee schools who rose to become superintendent of the district.

Have a Hook

Like I said before, “Class Full of Happy Students Learns to Multiply” is a nice story, but a tough sell for the media. To get your good news published, you need a hook—some aspect of the story that will grab editors’ and readers’ attention and keep them reading. In Kankakee’s case, there are two potential hooks. The first one is that the district starts career education when kids are so young. It’s unusual and unexpected, and it makes readers want to find out how the district does it.

The second hook is Dr. Walters herself, a classic “local girl made good.” Which brings me to another important point about storytelling for schools: People are better than programs. Yes, it’s amazing that your district has a teacher who is helping three- and four-year olds build a Mars rover, but who is that teacher? A former astronaut? A former “bad kid” who found his calling in the classroom? The “human interest” story is a cliché because it’s true. Humans are interested in other humans.

Connect Your Story to a Larger Narrative

Another great way to get positive attention from the media is to connect your school’s story to a larger national or international narrative. Right now, for example, the story of a Syrian refugee child who comes to a new school and teaches her classmates about Syrian culture would be a big hit. And it’s not just one-time events that you can connect with. Editors are always looking for stories that tie in with recurring events like presidential elections, the Olympics, or even the Super Bowl.

Tell Your Story Every Day

In today’s connected world, getting articles published in newspapers or magazines is only a part of telling your story. Whether you like it or not, part of your story is being told on social media every day, by students, parents, and pundits, all of whom have their own agenda. And though the temptation to respond to critics can be strong, I think we can all agree that engaging in a shouting match in the echo chamber of the Internet is worse than useless.

Instead, I suggest following the lead of Tom Murray, the State and District Digital Learning Policy and Advocacy Director at the Alliance for Excellent Education. In his former job as director of technology and cyber education in the Quakertown Community School District, Murray was in a meeting with 30 administrators who he wanted to enlist in telling the school’s story through Twitter. “Our goal,” he said, “became to highlight one great thing a teacher was doing and one great thing a student was doing each day, taking no more than five minutes.”

Two Tweets times 30 administrators times five days equaled 300 positive stories coming out of the district every week. Seeing how easy it was, teachers joined in, highlighting their successes on the district’s hashtag. With a little initiative and diligent follow-through, the Quakertown community collaborated to tell its story—one Tweet at a time.

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Christopher Piehler is the Lead Storyteller at PR with Panache! The former editor-in-chief of THE Journal, he has worked for a variety of consumer and B2B publications. He has been an ed tech commentator on both TV and radio, has served as a CODiE award judge, and has been a speaker at the FETC and CoSN conferences.

This is the first part of a two-part article. Part two will cover how schools can use local, national, and education-focused publications to tell their stories to a variety of audiences.

Read all of our posts about EdTech and Innovation by clicking here. 

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