Reblogged from socialschoolpr.wordpress.com, where I posted this piece on Friday:

At my office, we’re trying out a new product that, since its launch in September, has already received interest from other school districts in our region. It’s called Smashup, and the product places all your social media feeds onto one page where readers can easily follow you and see your posts on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and now even Pinterest.

In addition, at the bottom of the page, you can see a cool iris tool that permits the user to scan through your videos and choose one to watch.

The company that created the tool, AllofE Solutions of Lawrence, Kan., worked with us over the summer to design our Smashup page and combined RSS feeds from our social media sites to build the page. We worked closely with the company on the design to ensure that it would look like our website pages, even though it’s not really a part of our website at all.

I was also trained on how to use the Smashup back-end tool, which permits me to make changes to individual modules, change font styles and even change the feeds themselves. I’m also able to rotate our featured social media feed, giving our member school districts a chance to be featured regularly. Currently, the White Plains City School District’s Facebook page is in the featured spot.

Having access to the tool is your choice, and some of you may prefer to simply permit the company to maintain and monitor the site. If you’re lucky enough to have a webmaster with html coding experience, then you might consider building your own social media portal page.

Blended social media portals are growing in popularity among K-12 school districts, but are particularly being used now by colleges and universities, many of which have grown their social media stable to dozens and even hundreds sites that can be corralled onto one page for easier access. Here are a few you can check out:

All Harvard Social Media

Kent State University Social Media Portal

Connect with The New School

Connect with Stevens-Henager College

Cincinnati Public Schools’ I Am CPS Page

Northfield Mount Hermon Independent School’s NMH Book

I don’t think anything is more important than learning how to privatize your personal Facebook page, particularly if you’re:

1. An adult
2. An educator
3. A respected member of society

OK, so we’re all respected members of society, but even the most respected among us occasionally slip up, or maybe allow ourselves to get our photo taken by a well-meaning friend in less than flattering lighting, or perhaps with a beer in our hand.

Those are not the worst infractions in the world, naturally. But our lives are now on public display, and when that happens, even the most trivial and harmless visuals can be misunderstood or misinterpreted by others. Read: students, parents, bosses.

So recently, a wise superintendent here in Westchester County, where I live and work, invited me to conduct a workshop for her faculty on this very subject. To my delight, the group of 150 teachers and staff were engaging and hands-on, many of them proud of their new Mac skills and eager to do the right thing: conduct a thorough, step-by-step audit of their own Facebook pages, shutting them down to all but their friends.

No one is saying here that educators shouldn’t use Facebook. On the contrary, social media of all kinds can enrich your life and learning. But be wise and protect your online footprint.

The second half of the presentation is a quick look at Facebook groups for teaching, Twitter, and a bit of best practices in using Pinterest and Learnist by educators.

Here’s that presentation:

http://www.blogdash.com/full_profile/?claim_code=09ed03f641e73e365eeb3caaf8ccbbee

Parent Teacher Associations, following the lead of the National PTA, are just beginning to enter the social media world, creating Facebook fan pages, Facebook groups, and Twitter feeds. In a presentation this week to the Westchester-East Putnam PTA, I emphasized that most PTAs will want to create a fan page, rather than a group page, on Facebook. The reasons? Browse through my presentation to learn why!

Presentation to Westchester East Putnam PTA

I recently received my invitation to join Learnist, and have been rooting around the site, learning how to use it and discovering its value.

Learnist looks and feels a lot like Pinterest — it resembles a digital bulletin board with a focus on visuals. The “learning boards” on the site also look like Facebook’s timeline feature, and Facebook membership is required to use Learnist. As is the case in the social media world, you can “like” other members’ boards, suggest “Learnings” (the nomenclature for resources) for other members, and “follow” your favorite members.

As is often the case, teachers have jumped on board Learnist and seem to be using it in — ahem — earnest.

I have used Learnist primarily to post information about using social media in education, including many of my previous Powerpoint presentations and resources out on the web, posted by others but curated by me. (Curation, by the way, is the next phase of using social media, and Learnist is a great way to deliver a “library” of resources on a particular topic.)

A  “Favorite Apps for Education” board includes a look at tools like Jognog, Edmodo, and Educreations. Another board, “Educator Web Resources,” is a library of cool resources including TED, Edutopia, Google Books, and YouTube for Schools. There’s even a “Cosmetology Education board“, with useful resources about cosmetology education.

Karen Klein, via People magazine

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle has published a fascinating look at why the story of Karen Klein, the bus driver who was mercilessly bullied by middle school students in Greece, N.Y., went so viral.
Among other things, the story says, viewers of the YouTube video shot on the bus identified with Ms. Klein, who is a senior citizen and who didn’t fight back.
“This is a glance into the heart of darkness of the human spirit,” said Syracuse University media professor Robert Thompson in the D&C piece. “But it’s not a serial killer, it’s our own kids.” Everyone loves an underdog.
Even more interesting, from strictly a social media point of view, is that the video only had a few dozen hits on YouTube until Daniel Kiernan posted it on Reddit, a social networking site.
“Users on a second site, 4Chan, picked up on it, and soon, links were being posted to Facebook and Twitter, and views on the YouTube video were growing exponentially. By Friday, the video had amassed 4.2 million views…”
The Democrat and Chronicle also notes Rochester’s two other popular local YouTube sensations — when Jason McElwain, an autistic high school senior, scored 20 points in a basketball game, and when Emily Good was arrested for filming a traffic stop.
Timing is everything. When McElwain scored those points in a Greece Athena High School basketball game in 2006, Facebook had only 10 million fans and Twitter hadn’t even been born. (A segment on ESPN actually vaulted him into the national spotlight.)
Meanwhile, Ms. Klein’s popularity has grown so much as a result of social media, that more than 29,000 people have donated $648,000 (as of this writing) to a fund established by Indiegogo.com, a fundraising website that didn’t even exist until 2008. Ms. Klein was making $15,000 a year as a bus monitor.

Social Media Outposts (Photo credit: the tartanpodcast)

I had the pleasure this week of serving on a panel discussion for the Gannett newspaper in my city about how schools are using (or abusing) social media. The discussion focused quite a bit on the recent development of the New York City schools’ social media policy, which prohibits teachers fro becoming “friends” with their students on Facebook and other popular social media sites. On the panel with me were Dr. Christopher Clouet, Superintendent of Schools in the White Plains City School District, along with two students and one parent from other Westchester County schools.
Because I knew the discussion would center at least partly on social media abuses, I prepared a list of helpful resources in advance. This list covers everything from templates for social media policies, to information about teachers in some parts of the country are beginning to experiment communicating with students through Facebook fan pages. It’s a lot, but worth perusing.

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Just wrote this piece for the National School Public Relations Association blog, and wanted to share it here:
My staff at Southern Westchester BOCES and I discovered Issuu several years ago, and we have been using this tool for the districts we represent to “animate” their publications ever since.
The reason? School district websites are already cluttered with PDF documents, forcing our readers to download documents to their computer hard drives and often to print them out. Why force readers to take those extra steps?
For most newsletters, annual reports, calendars and even Powerpoint presentations, we now provide our readers with two choices: to read the “animated” Issuu version of a document, or to download a PDF.
If they choose the Issuu version, your viewers will see a document with pages that can be turned as they’re read and tools that allow them to zoom in and out while reading.
Here’s how to use Issuu:

• Create a free account for your district on Issuu.
• When you’ve completed a newsletter or other document and have a PDF version, sign on to Issuu and look for the “upload” button.
• Upload your PDF (it will take a few minutes to load).
• Once you’ve successfully uploaded your document, it will appear on a virtual bookshelf in your Issuu “library.”
• Click on the “open” button and your document will open for you.
• Once that document is open, you’ll see a series of icons at the bottom.
• Click on the < > icon, and you will see a long html embed code. Copy that.
• Paste the html code on the district website page where you’d like your publication to appear, and you’re done.

To see Issuu in action, check out the White Plains Public Schools Issuu site. To view how it works on a school website, check out how we used it to display our annual SWBOCES Services Guide.

Hyperarts.com has a fascinating post on the correct and incorrect ways to create those tempting (and possibly gorgeous) cover photos for the new Facebook timelines. Personally, I love my son’s choice (a simple photo he took of a book and an empty glass of wine on a dock somewhere in New England.
But as hyperarts points out, Facebook has some pretty strict guidelines on the use of these 851 x 315 pixel cover photos.
For example, you’re dissuaded from using the space for promotions, coupons and advertisements. And for Facebook, a photo is a photo. So don’t design something that is primarily text-based.
To read more about Facebook’s guidelines and to see examples that both break the rules and follow them, visit the hyperarts post.

Image via CrunchBase

I was happy to write this piece for the National School Public Relations Association’s “Trend Tracker” column:

We all know that YouTube has been used by high school students to clandestinely videotape a fight in the school hallway, or to turn the tables on a teacher they don’t like. The black eye that the media has given YouTube, along with other social media sites, is certainly somewhat self-inflicted.

But YouTube, like most social media, is simply a mirror on society. With three billion viewers a day, and more than 48 hours of video uploaded every minute, you’re bound to witness both the good and the bad.

At the same time, YouTube has worked hard to polish its image. Several years ago, it partnered with the country’s colleges and universities to create YouTube Edu, where you can watch promotional videos and free classroom lectures posted by Harvard, MIT, Stanford and dozens of other institutions of higher learning. And recently, it has expanded that site to include the categories of “primary and secondary education” and “lifelong learning.”

Dozens of tech-savvy school districts, state education departments and even the National PTA have decided it’s time to join the rest of the universe by using YouTube as a public relations tool. And while any foray into social media can have its pitfalls (anonymous commenting on YouTube, for example), you can control what’s posted on your channel.

Among those using YouTube effectively are the Guilford County Schools (GCS) in Greensboro, N.C., with 338 videos uploaded to its channel since it was created in January 2010. GCS’s videos have been viewed 29,420 times and range from features about students and school events, to panel discussions among educators about learning trends. At last count, 60 viewers “subscribe” to the GCSchoolsNC channel, which means they’ve chosen to receive video feeds from the district on their own YouTube pages.

On a larger scale, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction uses its YouTube channel to post press conferences and messages from the state superintendent, and to promote individual schools throughout the state. The WisconsinDPI channel has uploaded 127 videos since creating the channel in 2008, and its videos have been viewed more than 113,000 times.

One of my favorite school YouTube channels was actually created by OneDublin, an independent, parent-run organization supporting the Dublin, Calif., public schools. This group has its own website and YouTube channel, and its “I Am Dublin” video is one of my favorites. In the piece, graduating seniors individually name the college or university they’ll be attending, and proudly point out that “I Am Dublin” — a simple, but effective way to promote the success of the high school.
Make Connections with Other Social Media

If you’re going to create a YouTube channel, it’s important to remember that most social media sites want you to make connections. If your district already has a Facebook fan page or a Twitter feed, for example, you can easily connect those sites to your YouTube channel. Go to your YouTube Account Settings page and choose the “Activity Sharing” dropdown. There, you can simply choose which of your other social media sites should be connected to your YouTube channel. When you make that connection, your uploaded YouTube videos will automatically appear on your Facebook fan page wall, and links will appear on your Twitter feed.

A number of paid and free third-party applications also can help you to add a YouTube tab to your district’s Facebook fan page, where a real-time library of videos posted to your YouTube channel can appear. Many of these apps, including Involver, Tabsite, and Pagemodo, automatically refresh your YouTube video library. This means that your Facebook fans never have to leave Facebook to watch the latest videos you’ve posted.
Additional Thoughts and Advice

A few caveats about using YouTube:

If you’re a one-person school public relations office, take small steps. First purchase an easy-to-use video camera (we use the Flipcam in our office) and practice making brief videos of school events. Then, install video editing software like iMovie or FinalCut Pro, and learn how to use them. Do this before even thinking about creating a YouTube channel.

While certainly the decision to open or close comments on YouTube is up to your discretion, most districts close comments on the site. The reason? YouTube continues to permit viewers to post comments anonymously, so comments can sometimes be off-color and downright vulgar.

As the opportunities provided by electronic communication continue to grow, YouTube is one medium that is worth consideration. Think of it as a video newsletter — like a printed newsletter, it allows you to control the content to disseminate your message and avoid the news media gatekeepers.

Related articles

• How to optimise a video for YouTube (marketing.yell.com)
• YouTube Gets Way More Social With Facebook, Google+ Integration (hubspot.com)
• 502 International Education related YouTube channel subscriptions… (davidcomp.wordpress.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Just like educators and school public relations folks, Parent Teacher Associations around the country are currently struggling with administering social media sites, especially Facebook fan pages.
Cognizant of the need to reach out to members, raise funds and build support for their schools, PTAs from California to New York are beginning to create fan pages, monitor comments, and generally learn more about building fan bases on the world’s most popular social media sites.
So the audience last week, when I presented at the New York State PTA’s annual conference, was about as lively as you can expect. And once again, the learning curve was all over the map and included one audience member who noted that she had no experience on Facebook along with others who corrected me on a couple of social media fine points I probably should know by now.
Like any presenter, I’m sure, a lively audience is the best scenario. I love a lively, talkative audience with their hands in the air. It’s so much more rewarding than a group that looks comatose while you’re up there talking.
Here’s my presentation. Enjoy. And by all means, raise your hand!

Related articles

• Be social: Do you really need a social media manager? (marketing.yell.com)
• Ongoing lessons (mita56.wordpress.com)