When I asked a couple weeks ago if there would ever be a time for Facebook in schools, I started a fairly heated discussion. A few people applauded the call for modern and relevant outreach and student connections. Most people were horrified at the thought of using Facebook, whose privacy cred makes Google look like the Federal Witness Protection Program, for interacting with students.
To be honest, I don’t disagree with many of these concerns. My intent was and still is to increase communication between parents, teachers, and students and ensure that kids have access to all the information they need in really relevant and easily accessible ways. Am I advocating for such connections at all costs? No, and obviously our students’ privacy and safety needs to be the top priority. I still maintain that there is an important place for Facebook in all of this given its general ubiquity, but there are important mainstream, simple alternatives to consider.
This brings me to a reader email, asking about the very issue of improving and modernizing school-parent communications:
My issue is about communicating with parents and the school community using technology. How’s that for a novel angle?
Currently, our parent council has proposed that a 1-page insert be included with the monthly school paper newsletter in order to announce upcoming events (e.g., fundraisers) that are being offered.
I’m looking for an electronic way to do this, and have been investigating Facebook Pages for this. Pros: parents already go on Facebook daily, so “Liking” a parent council page would a perfect way for its announcements to be “in their face” on their Facebook Wall. Cons: Once a parent has “Liked” the page, a link to the page appears on the parent’s profile page, thus revealing that they are interested in the events advertised on the parent council page, etc. etc. security NO-NO!
Is there another way to put the parent council’s announcements “in parents’ faces” without having to deal with this limitation in Facebook’s security settings? A traditional Web site or RSS feed wouldn’t work, as no one would remember to check it. Announcements really have to smack them in the face while they are logging into something that they use daily.
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
My response is below…As always, share your own thoughts in the talkbacks.
Great question! And not one that is easily answered with a “universal” solution. That being said, I have a couple of ideas. Again, none of these are perfect, but they’re all worthy of consideration:
- Your district’s SIS or LMS may have broadcast email/text functionality. Many are integrating that now and parent contacts could simply be texted or emailed a link to a static page on a website. You can use a URL shortener with a custom URL (e.g., bit.ly) to make it easy for parents who just get a text message on a non-smart, non-feature phone.
- A third-party solution that does the same thing as above (see reachpeople.com - this is free and allows people to opt in easily)
- Twitter - tweet links to new information on static pages (this is the easiest way, IMO, and completely opt-in, although it will probably have the least reach/impact)
- A third party emergency contact calling application - it’s likely that your district already has something like ConnectEd (now owned by BlackBoard) or OneCallNow in place. Most of these can leverage voice as well as SMS or email. The same link referral strategy would apply.
- Podcasts - sounds a little whacky, but lots of people use iTunes and subscribe to podcasts. Really, they’re just subscribing to an RSS feed, but iTunes makes it very easy.
- YouTube - again, sort of whacky, but people spend a lot of time on YouTube, videos can be private, you can create a dedicated channel, and people can watch your announcements just about anytime/anywhere. Combined with Twitter, you might be able to drive a lot of traffic for free.
Chris Dawson is a freelance writer and consultant with years of experience in educational technology and web-based systems. In 2011, he became the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network SaaS provider.
Disclosure
Christopher Dawson
Christopher Dawson is the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., by day and a freelance writer and educational technology consultant by night. Well, most of his colleagues at WizIQ are based in India, so really he's working with them whenever he can stay awake. He has worked for his local school district as a teacher and technology director, for the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and for Biogen, Inc. (now Biogen-IDEC, Inc.).
He has also consulted with STATNet and Cytyc Corporation and retains close ties with X2 Development Corporation (now owned by Follett Software, the supplier of the student information system he administered for several years). Follett is paying him a monthly honorarium to act as a presenter for their "SIS Voices for Student Achievement" community (he produces occasional blog posts and hosts a monthly webinar on the use of student information systems to inform data-driven instruction and school-wide change.
He regularly purchases and/or recommends Dell hardware. This is because Dell makes good hardware and has truly committed itself to education in innovative ways, particularly with their "Connected Classroom" initiative. It isn't because he has dealings with the company through his role at WizIQ (which he does) or because they have provided him with long-term loans of a variety of equipment for in-depth testing (which they have).
Intel (reference designer for the Classmate PCs he has implemented in his local schools) has provided him with long-term loans of Classmate PCs for testing, as have Dell and Lenovo with their educational offerings. He may report on any of these companies as his experiences with them have direct bearing on educational technology; positive reports are not necessarily an endorsement and he receives no direct financial compensation from these companies or any others.
Intel paid all expenses for his attendance at the 2009 Intel Classmate PC Ecosystem Summit which he attended as the sole representative of the technology press. He was invited to attend in 2010 but his wife would have killed him if he spent 3 days in Vegas geeking out and left her home alone with a new baby. Acer provided him with a 50% discount on an Aspire One netbook in early 2009 after he tested it for 30 days through their educational seed program. He liked the netbook at the time but it has since broken and sits unused in his office. Canonical sent him Ubuntu lanyards, t-shirts, and mousepads for his kids. He stole one of the lanyards and proudly hangs his keys from it and occasionally features his 8-year old wearing an oversized Ubuntu t-shirt on his Facebook profile. Gunnar Optiks sent him a pair of computer glasses to evaluate for a holiday gift guide. He is wearing them now as he types this because they never asked for them back and they rock out loud. Seriously - they work brilliantly and make it much easier to spend 20 hours a day staring at an LCD. If they ever asked for them back, he would fork over the $99 and buy a pair.
Microsoft gave him 2 free copies of Office 2010 professional, a desktop clock, and a useless book on Office 2010 when he attended the launch of Office/Sharepoint 2010. He occasionally uses the SharePoint lanyard they gave him instead of the Ubuntu lanyard for his keys, but feels dirty afterwards.
Adobe provided him with a pre-release version of the CS5 Master Collection for evaluation and ultimately provided a full, licensed copy for ongoing testing of educational applications of this admittedly expensive software. Like the Gunnars, if the license expires or they come out with CS6, he'd actually go out and buy it himself. Which is saying something, because he's actually pretty cheap.
Any other companies wishing to send him cool things to evaluate, wear, or otherwise adorn his kids are more than welcome to; he promises to disclose it here if he keeps any of the stuff.
Finally, because WizIQ is a virtual classroom and learning network provider, Chris, as VP of Marketing, frequently interacts with, seeks out deals with, and directly or indirectly competes with a whole lot of LMS, SIS, and other Education 2.0 companies. In general, he'll limit his reporting about these companies to news that does not impact his relationship with them or with WizIQ. If he reports on them, it's because what they are doing is newsworthy or worth the attention of his readers and not because he's trying to broker some deal, damage competition, or otherwise advance his position in his day job. LMS and SIS companies, along with other online learning communities, are a pretty important part of Ed Tech. If he stops reporting on them completely, there won't be a whole lot left. He'll be sure to call out any overt conflicts of interest if they are unavoidable.
Finally, Follett Software Company pays him a little tiny honorarium every month to present on their SIS Voices webinars and to write the occasional blog or discussion thread for them. Since Follett recently bought X2 (maker of an awesome web-based SIS that Chris just happened to have used, served in advisory groups for, and frequently reported on), this is probably also worth disclosing.
Biography
Christopher Dawson
Christopher Dawson grew up in Seattle, back in the days of pre-antitrust Microsoft, coffeeshops owned by something other than Starbucks, and really loud, inarticulate music. He escaped to the right coast in the early 90's and received a degree in Information Systems from Johns Hopkins University. While there, he began a career in health and educational information systems, with a focus on clinical trials and related statistical programming and database modeling. This focus led him to several positions at Johns Hopkins, a couple-year stint in private industry, teaching high school math and technology, and 2 years as the technology director for his local school district. Most recently, he started his own consulting business and is now the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network provider.
He lives with his wife, five kids (yes, 5), 2 dogs, and a hateful cat in a small town in north-central Massachusetts. Although he is no longer teaching, his roles with WizIQ and ZDNet allow him to continue helping students and teachers add value to education with technology rather than merely adding to the bottom line.
