Communicating in a Web 2.0 World  Evelyn McCormack  

New York School Public Relations Association March 8, 2010

This presentation is available online at www.slideshare.net/evelynmccormack

The Great Dupont Circle Snowball Fight

Coverage of the Snowball Event...

The Flickr Site -- 3,000 photos uploaded

On YouTube: 60 videos uploaded

The Message?Social Media is here to stay.

A Few Social Media StatsFacebook (created 2004)• 400 million active users, 100m log on daily• 100,000 age 64+, 310,000 between 45-63• 300,000 businesses now have FB fan pages

 LinkedIn (created 2003) • 60 million members

Twitter (launched 2006)• 7 million accounts• How many tweets?

 YouTube (launched 2005)• Every minute, 20 hrs of video uploaded

 

• American Dialect Society named “google” word of the decade and “tweet” word of the year. Oxford dictionary declared “unfriend” (remove someone as a FB friend) word of the year in 2009.

 • U.S. adults w/profile on a social networking site 

quadrupled in past four years -- 8% in 2005 to 35% now. 76% of all U.S. broadband users actively contribute to social media sites.

 • 250 million iPods sold since 2001

 (Sources: TechCrunch, Pew Internet & American Life Project, January 2009.)

Common Myths About Social Media

1. Social Media is for Teens and Tweens

2. Social Media will compromise our internet security

3. Social Media will jeopardize eRate funding

4. Social Media wastes time

5. Social Media is expensive

• Publicize your achievements • Drive traffic to your website 

 • Control your own message. An

alternative/in addition to print media • Develop a Personal Learning

Network -- share ideas, collaborate, professional contacts

What Can Social Media Do for Your School or District?

When your IT Department says it can't be done, show them this:

--from http://www.whitehouse.gov

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube & Flickr

Scary, Scary Places

White Plains City School District

NYC Schools

New York State School Boards

Hi Point Journeys: A High School Social Media Campaign

How to Make Facebook your District Newsroom

1. Create a personal FB page, either your own or one based on someone/mascotn. If you choose a fictional name, it's important to create a real email account for confirmation. 2. Go to: facebook.com/pages/create.php to create a Facebook fan page. 3. Design your fan page by uploading your District logo, filling in your Mission Statement, etc.  

   4. Promote your fan page on your District website. 5. When you have 25 fans, go to facebook.com/username & click on “Set a username for your pages.”  Instead of your page having a super long URL you can have a "vanity" URL (http://www.facebook.com/yourdistrict) if someone else hasn't grabbed it already.

at this dropdown, choose Education

Name of District here

Your name or alias here

School Districts on Facebook

• Anchorage School District • Blue Valley Schools (Kansas)• Boston Public Schools• Ferndale, Mich., Public Schools• Richmond, Va., City Schools• Pendleton, Ore., Schools• Fort Worth, Tex., Independent SD • Plano, Tex., Independent SD• Portland, Ore., Public Schools • Fort Osage Public Schools (Kansas City, MO) • Yonkers Public Schools Alumni

 …and hundreds more.

Who Else is on Facebook?

• New York State School Boards Assn.• American School Board Journal • President Barack Obama• Stanford University• Carnegie-Mellon University• The New York Times• NYS Association of Foreign Language Teachers• The American Red Cross• Autism Speaks• Columbia University

Promote, Promote and Promote Some More

Northfield Mount Hermon Schools

Facebook False Starts

To Tweet or Not to TweetTwitter in Public Education

photo credit: chriswallace.com

• Micro-blogging tool (140 characters) that can be used to post news, links, photos and more.

 • A tool that can be used (along with others) to drive

traffic back to your district website• A way to share information and links with other

districts, school PR people, etc.

Edmodo -- Twitter for Educators

Twitter

Janis Krums’ Tweet from his cell phone on Jan. 15, 2009 – aboard a ferry on the Hudson River in NYC

Who’s Using Twitter?

• Largest age group is 35-49, comprising almost 42 percent of the site’s audience. (Nielsen Online)

 • Majority visit Twitter while at work, and 62 percent

access it from work only. (Nielsen Online)

 • 230 schools/districts now on

@schoolpr/k12schools

How to Make Twitter Your District Newsroom

1. Create a Twitter account at www.twitter.com

2. Upload District logo, District contact information, and link to the District website address.

3. Start tweeting.Tweets can consist of simple messages, hellos and updates.They can also be brief introductions, w/a link to your website news page.

4. Also can tweet a link from local newspaper, if they write a complimentary story about your District. Can also RT (retweet) news from another Twitter account.

5. Promote, promote, promote!

Yorktown Schools

Yonkers Public Schools

White Plains Schools

Southern Westchester BOCES

Northfield Mount Hermon

More Public Schools Twittering

• NYC Department of Ed @nycpublic schools• Mesa, Arizona @mpsaz• South Allegheny, PA @southallegheny• North Hills, PA @north_hills • Fayetteville, GA @fcschoolsga• Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School@pavcs • Duval Schools (Jacksonville, FL)@duvalschoolnews• Kent ISD(Grand Rapids, MI)@kentisd• Fairfax County Public Schools (VA) @fcpsnews• Ohio Department of Education @oheducation• Arizona Public Schools @azschools• Royal Oak Schools (Mich.) @royaloakschools• Portage Schools (Michigan) @portageschools• Broward County Schools @browardcounty

...and hundreds more

NYSPRA

Higher Ed on Twitter

Columbia University Law SchoolColumbia Teachers College Harvard University Stanford Princeton MIT has more than 50 official Twitter feedsGeorgetown University UCLA The Boston University Shuttle Boston College Barnard College 

...and hundreds more

Companies & Organizations Twittering

• Ford• Starbucks• Whole Foods• Southwest Air • Jet Blue• The Smithsonian• American Red Cross• Honda• NASA

Government Twittering• Centers for Disease Control• The White House• US. Dept. of Education• 10 Downing Street• U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security• U.S. Senate• U.S. House of Representatives• World Health Organization• USS Nimitz  • Greenversations (EPA)  • Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

• Education Week• National Education Association• U.S. Department of Education • Media on Twitter• The New York Times• The Washington Post•  

US Dept. of Health and Human Services (H1N1 updates)

• Other school districts

Who to Follow...

http://twitter.com/wca4kids

What's Retweeting?

Twitter Tools 

• TweetBeep allows you to get email alerts about tweets on a topic you choose.

• Twitter Search allows you to search for news and conversations by certain terms, ie, Haiti.

Twitter ListsWhere you can see similar Twitter feeds assembled in one place.• http://twitter.com/#/list/schoolpr/k12schools• http://twitter.com/mashable/non-profits

…and one of my faves:• http://twitter.com/cityroom/nyc-street-food-trucks

Twitpic

 

Schools on YouTube

Northfield Mount Hermon School

White Plains Schools

The Hi Point YouTube Page

SUNY Plattsburgh

Dartmouth

Salem-Keizer (Ore.) Schools on Vimeo

Check out Youtube EDU for ideas/inspiration

Alternatives to YouTube (in the classroom)

• TeacherTube (gated videos site for teachers and students. Not blocked like YouTube)

• Zamzar (allows you to download videos from YouTube and use them in the classroom without having to go online) 

• Vimeo

Uses for Flickr

• Put up a photo tour of schools (and allow others to add their own photos)

• Showcase photos from special events• Create a student portrait gallery with quotes or

personal anecdotes about life at school• Create albums of alumni class reunions• Post ongoing photos of the new building

construction for parents & alumni to see• Make commencement album to show ceremony

photos (and encourage graduates or parents to submit their own)

The Hi Point Flickr Page

Yonkers Public Library Photostream

Northfield Mount Hermon Schools

NYSPRA Ning

Social Media Guidelines/Resources

Social Media Guidelines WikiA wiki created by school administrators to share  social media guidelines; contains templates)

Social Media Guidelines for Educators Facebook page

Acceptable Use Policies 2.0 (David Warlick site)

Four Big Ideas for Acceptable Use Policies 2.0/Social Media Guidelines

• Responsible personal conduct within the online environment is no different than responsible personal conduct face-to-face.

 • Individuals must protect personal safety online

 • Civic life has an expanding digital dimension that demands

responsible engagement by individuals and groups.  • There are long-lasting implications to publishing in the

online environment. 

 --Office of the State of Washington Supt of Public Instruction

Golden Rules for Using Social Media

1.Respect the spirit of the Internet2.Listen, give kudos and be generous.3.Add value. How am I adding value to the

conversation or the community?4.Respond in a timely fashion.5.Be real. Authenticity is important.6.Collaborate. It's all about community.

--credit: Simona Boucek, Salem-Keizer (Ore.) Public Schools 

This presentation is available online at http:www.slideshare.net/evelynmccormack

Evelyn McCormack, SWBOCES Director of Public Informationemccormack@swboces.org    Facebook LinkedIn TwitterBlog: School Communications 2.0

Thank You!

Resources

Additional Web 2.0 tools, links and more videos

Nings & Wikis

• Network with other people with similar interests. Discuss issues, share best practices, collaborate on projects. Parents, students, staff, colleagues.

• Free and easy to set up. You set privacy levels (closed, open, by invitation only).

• Great gadgets attached to them. Post articles, links, photos, video. Blogs can be "cross-posted" to a Ning site.

• Eliminate one-webmaster problem & outdated internet/intranet content 

•  Ning -- 1 million networks,4.7 unique visitors

Platforms

Ning.com

Free Wiki Platforms:pbworkspbworks campus edition www.wikispaces.comwikispace private label for K-12 educators www.wetpaint.com

Nings in Education

8,700 members

Manhattanville Comm Wiki

Classroom 2.030,000 members

Blogs/eNewsletters• Blog: a diary or journal that chronicles author’s

stories, thoughts, learnings

• Available for others to ‘subscribe’ to (they receive new ‘articles’/‘posts’ automatically).

• Most effective use of blogging is for the creation and publishing of enewsletters.

• As each article is published, older articles automatically drop down lower on the page and are archived.

Free Blog Platforms:

• classblogmeister.com: gated blogging tool• Edublogs -- Wordpress blog tool for educators• Wordpress blogging platform• Blogger -- Google blogging platform• Today.com 

 Paid eNewsletter Services:

• Constant Contact• iContact

Boston Public Schools Blog

Maggie Skau's blog in New Rochelle, NY

Online Publishing Tools

IssuuLets readers of your publications turn the pages

ScribdUpload publications to this website. Read by 50 million every month, 50,000 documents uploaded every day

Photos and slideshows: Photobucket

How it looks on a website.

Cover It Live: cover any event live, host a weekly Q&A, etc.

Clip2Net: Clip and save any web page for use later.

A Long List of Web 2.0 & Social Media Resources

Online Document Sharing:Google DocsScribusWritewith.com (group writing/editing)Piconote -- online note-takingWritewith -- cooperative document editing

Newsletter Creation & Tools:Letterpop (create newsletters for free. A bit clunky.)Issuu (free-post any print document, email, embed, etc.)

Photo Editing:Snipshot (edit your photos online/alternative to Photoshop)FixRedEyes -- fix red eye on photos online

Wiki Platforms:Wetpaint Wikis Wikispaces Blog Platforms:WordpressBloggerEdublogs Twitter tools:Grouptweet – send private messages to specific groups using TwitterMytweetmap – shows where tweets are coming from on a mapTwitpic – Post photo links on TwitterMake Use Of's The Complete Guide to TwitterTwitter in Plain English  

Miscellaneous Web 2.0:VisualCV – Create a visual resume onlineThe Common Craft Show (video how-tos)  A to Z of Social MediaSlideshareGo 2 Web 2.0 – great resourceDigital Nation on Frontline (PBS Project)14 Technologies Educators Should Watch in 2010 

Related Presentations: Four Social Media Sites Schools Can't Ignore -- Lorrie JacksonDive Deep into Facebook -- Lorrie Jackson 

Free Webinars: eSchoolNewsClassroom 2.0Burrelles Luce

Go 2 Web 2.0 – great resourceDigital Nation on Frontline (PBS Project)14 Technologies Educators Should Watch in 2010 

Related Presentations: Four Social Media Sites Schools Can't Ignore -- Lorrie JacksonDive Deep into Facebook -- Lorrie Jackson 

Free Webinars: eSchoolNewsClassroom 2.0Burrelles Luce

Wikis in Plain English--A How-to

The Internet has a Face -- Student video about YouTube vloggers

Who Are Your Students?