An article that was posted on Mashable yesterday sounds like it's the exact information I've been looking for: "How Schools Can Use Facebook to Build an Online Community". Unfortunately, it's mostly a beginner's guide to creating a school's Facebook page.
The comments are interesting, though, since so many of them are opposed to schools having Facebook pages.
I think many people oppose Facebook for schools because they haven't realized that schools have always needed to communicate with their community -- to answer questions, to address rumors, to announce news, and to listen. It's more efficient to handle that communication asynchronously and publicly on a free medium (Facebook) instead of synchronously (on the phone or in-person), one on one (email), or on a pay medium (sending notes home). Those are real savings that can be put directly back towards the classroom. The additional accountability of parents being able to publicly ask hard questions when necessary is just icing on the cake.
Some people seem concerned about student data, but we already have FERPA laws in place to protect student data. All schools have local procedures to make sure those laws are followed. This seems like a thoroughly-settled issue to me, but I can see how they might not know that.
And I guess that's the key -- they just don't know what they're talking about. They don't know that parental support and involvement is a bigger determining factor in educational success than anything else. Teacher quality, curriculum, etc -- nothing beats parent involvement. Schools can use Facebook to cheaply encourage parental involvement, and that's a serious win.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Think schools, not district
About once a month, the person in charge of our district's visual identity gets a request for one or more school logos. Sometimes, the PTA wants to use the logo on a newsletter or printed piece. Other times, it's a company looking to make t-shirts or something else they can sell to students. We get enough requests like this that our graphic designer has the process down to a science: figure out if it's reasonable, make sure the principal is aware and approves, then figure out what computer file format will work best.
The thing is, I can't remember a time when someone requested the school district's logo.
That's the norm, though. There are tons of businesses that "adopt" the schools near their brick-and-mortar locations, but many fewer reach out to help the entire district. When we post on Facebook about individual schools, we get excited replies from parents, but district-wide stories just get "likes" and comments that read like form letters.
People don't connect with school districts; they connect with schools. We care about the school we go to, but it's hard to care about the district because it's not familiar and it involves so many unknowns. Parents haven't interacted with the district office (or even those other schools) every day for years, the way they did when their kids went to the neighborhood school. Worse still, bad news travels faster than good, so sometimes that's all that parents have heard about the district.
District-community connections do exist, though, and it's not impossible to strengthen them. We post tons of news from all our schools, for example, so people get the idea that there are always good things happening at every school. The events that logistically have to happen at the district-level help bridge some of the gaps. And, some things are just easier to go ahead and take care of at the district level.
...but don't spend all your time working on the district website. Take a step back from rigid district-wide templates and let schools develop their own styles and personalities. Even better, look at how the schools work with their community now, and help them build their websites around those ideas. Definitely embrace their cultural touchstones; post pictures of beloved long-time staff members and play up their traditions.
If you can redirect resources toward helping schools strengthen their own community connections, you'll get a lot more bang for your buck. When your district needs support, you'll still be able to make that appeal to the community, but you'll do it through the schools. People will line up to help the district when the teachers they've known for years point out that their own neighborhood school will see the benefit.
The thing is, I can't remember a time when someone requested the school district's logo.
That's the norm, though. There are tons of businesses that "adopt" the schools near their brick-and-mortar locations, but many fewer reach out to help the entire district. When we post on Facebook about individual schools, we get excited replies from parents, but district-wide stories just get "likes" and comments that read like form letters.
People don't connect with school districts; they connect with schools. We care about the school we go to, but it's hard to care about the district because it's not familiar and it involves so many unknowns. Parents haven't interacted with the district office (or even those other schools) every day for years, the way they did when their kids went to the neighborhood school. Worse still, bad news travels faster than good, so sometimes that's all that parents have heard about the district.
District-community connections do exist, though, and it's not impossible to strengthen them. We post tons of news from all our schools, for example, so people get the idea that there are always good things happening at every school. The events that logistically have to happen at the district-level help bridge some of the gaps. And, some things are just easier to go ahead and take care of at the district level.
...but don't spend all your time working on the district website. Take a step back from rigid district-wide templates and let schools develop their own styles and personalities. Even better, look at how the schools work with their community now, and help them build their websites around those ideas. Definitely embrace their cultural touchstones; post pictures of beloved long-time staff members and play up their traditions.
If you can redirect resources toward helping schools strengthen their own community connections, you'll get a lot more bang for your buck. When your district needs support, you'll still be able to make that appeal to the community, but you'll do it through the schools. People will line up to help the district when the teachers they've known for years point out that their own neighborhood school will see the benefit.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Take on complexity so teachers don't have to
For the first few years at my job, after I had learned the ropes, I didn't make any major changes to the status quo: Teachers were expected to do all editing on their classroom websites. We could talk them through it on the phone, but we wanted them to do all the actual button-pushing themselves. The idea seemed to be that the teachers would gradually learn how to do all these neat, complex web editing techniques.
I started to notice that some teachers would ask me the same question about once a year. Something like "how do I change the title of one of my web pages?" At first, I thought that maybe they just weren't techno-savvy, but that didn't sit well for long. I didn't like the idea of noticing this pattern of once-a-year calls, calling it an unsolvable problem, and ignoring the situation altogether.
At around the same time, I started to feel really weird about teachers calling me during their conference time to fix little bits of their website. I mean, they could call at any time, but that's the only time they realistically had in their day for talking with me on the phone. I had learned from the Fed Up With Lunch blog that each minute a teacher has with no students in their room is infinitely precious planning, decompressing, eating, and restrooming time.
Eventually, I realized that I could split the changes that teachers made on their website into two categories:
It didn't make sense for teachers to make the changes in the second category. For example, it wasn't vitally important that each and every teacher see how to change the name of their webpages, because most of them only ever do it once. It also felt really, really right to let teachers report the problem, get back to their work, and read my "Problem Solved!" email at their own convenience.
The cost, though, was more effort from me. I had to spend more time thinking about the solutions, looking at teachers' websites, and guessing at the best one. It took more of my time to write the email back, because I also included instructions of what I had done, in case they wanted to know.
Was it worth my extra effort? Gerry McGovern absolutely nailed this topic a few weeks ago:
I started to notice that some teachers would ask me the same question about once a year. Something like "how do I change the title of one of my web pages?" At first, I thought that maybe they just weren't techno-savvy, but that didn't sit well for long. I didn't like the idea of noticing this pattern of once-a-year calls, calling it an unsolvable problem, and ignoring the situation altogether.
At around the same time, I started to feel really weird about teachers calling me during their conference time to fix little bits of their website. I mean, they could call at any time, but that's the only time they realistically had in their day for talking with me on the phone. I had learned from the Fed Up With Lunch blog that each minute a teacher has with no students in their room is infinitely precious planning, decompressing, eating, and restrooming time.
Eventually, I realized that I could split the changes that teachers made on their website into two categories:
- easy changes teachers did often enough to learn
- trickier changes that teachers did not do often enough to learn
And then, I took a really radical step, never before attempted in any school district ever. I lightened the load of teachers. I started to do the second category of changes for them.
It didn't make sense for teachers to make the changes in the second category. For example, it wasn't vitally important that each and every teacher see how to change the name of their webpages, because most of them only ever do it once. It also felt really, really right to let teachers report the problem, get back to their work, and read my "Problem Solved!" email at their own convenience.
The cost, though, was more effort from me. I had to spend more time thinking about the solutions, looking at teachers' websites, and guessing at the best one. It took more of my time to write the email back, because I also included instructions of what I had done, in case they wanted to know.
Was it worth my extra effort? Gerry McGovern absolutely nailed this topic a few weeks ago:
"The Web dictates that you put the customer first. That means taking on more complexity yourself." from The price of doing business on the web (March 14, 2011)
That's the whole point, isn't it? My job is to find the situations where a little extra effort on my part will let teachers do more of the real work: education.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
A New Hope for Home Internet
Google is in the business of being a game-changer. When they rolled out Gmail with 1GB of space for each person, Yahoo! Mail was offering a paltry 4MB. It took Yahoo over a year to catch up; Hotmail needed 2 and a half years.
(Why does Google offer so many free Internet tools? If Google makes the Internet better, people use the Internet more often, and Google's superior tools will be perfectly positioned to make money by showing them ads.)
Now, Google is experimenting with another potentially game-changing way to increase Internet use: better home Internet service. If you're not a heavy user, you might not think home Internet service is that bad. However, as we increasingly turn to streaming video instead of cable or satellite, companies like Comcast and AT&T are dragging their heels instead of moving with us, and early adopters are finding that the companies just don't seem willing to change. The problems that heavy users face today will be your problems tomorrow...
...unless Google's experiment works. It sure seems like all the right pieces are in place: Internet Service Providers have been coasting for years and increasing prices without any significant improvement to services. Google already has a lot of network expertise, both from leasing their own fiber lines all over the world and from smaller experiments with providing super-fast Internet to their own employees. And honestly, Google's too smart to undertake a project this big without a pretty solid plan in place.
So what happens now? We watch, and we cheer from the sidelines. If Google is able to successfully provide super-fast Internet access in Kansas City, at a cost equal to (or possibly much lower) than the competition's relatively slow broadband, we can look forward to similar improvements in most cities and neighborhoods across the US. If Comcast and AT&T can't keep up with Google, someone else will.
(Why does Google offer so many free Internet tools? If Google makes the Internet better, people use the Internet more often, and Google's superior tools will be perfectly positioned to make money by showing them ads.)
Now, Google is experimenting with another potentially game-changing way to increase Internet use: better home Internet service. If you're not a heavy user, you might not think home Internet service is that bad. However, as we increasingly turn to streaming video instead of cable or satellite, companies like Comcast and AT&T are dragging their heels instead of moving with us, and early adopters are finding that the companies just don't seem willing to change. The problems that heavy users face today will be your problems tomorrow...
...unless Google's experiment works. It sure seems like all the right pieces are in place: Internet Service Providers have been coasting for years and increasing prices without any significant improvement to services. Google already has a lot of network expertise, both from leasing their own fiber lines all over the world and from smaller experiments with providing super-fast Internet to their own employees. And honestly, Google's too smart to undertake a project this big without a pretty solid plan in place.
So what happens now? We watch, and we cheer from the sidelines. If Google is able to successfully provide super-fast Internet access in Kansas City, at a cost equal to (or possibly much lower) than the competition's relatively slow broadband, we can look forward to similar improvements in most cities and neighborhoods across the US. If Comcast and AT&T can't keep up with Google, someone else will.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Are you doing technology right? The Ten-Second Test
The school technology people I talk with spend a fair amount of time trying to figure out how to do edutech right. Should we have an official Facebook presence? Twitter? Should we go open source? IWBs? 1:1 devices for students? Since you can make an argument for or against any of these, none of them by themselves can really determine whether you're meeting student and teacher technology needs.
Then one day...
I was talking with a kindergarten teacher, and we came up with something that all schools should do, but that no school seems to make a priority. Something that seemed unquestionably useful and simple to implement, yet was ridiculously rare in practice.
So I present to you, the ultimate ten-second test of whether your school is addressing teachers' and students' technology needs:
That's it. Did you pass?
When my friend and I were talking, she pointed out that she tends to use Comic Sans because it has a single-story "a" (and an article from the BBC last October mentions that Comic Sans might just have a legitimate place in elementary schools) but she said that Comic Sans isn't exactly correct; none of her fonts are.
Then one day...
I was talking with a kindergarten teacher, and we came up with something that all schools should do, but that no school seems to make a priority. Something that seemed unquestionably useful and simple to implement, yet was ridiculously rare in practice.
So I present to you, the ultimate ten-second test of whether your school is addressing teachers' and students' technology needs:
Do your computers have:
- a block letter font that looks exactly how you want kindergartners to write?
- a cursive font that looks exactly how you want students to learn cursive?
- appropriate fonts/support for foreign languages taught in your schools?
That's it. Did you pass?
When my friend and I were talking, she pointed out that she tends to use Comic Sans because it has a single-story "a" (and an article from the BBC last October mentions that Comic Sans might just have a legitimate place in elementary schools) but she said that Comic Sans isn't exactly correct; none of her fonts are.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
The Passion of the Support Staff
We know that teachers have to be passionate. The pay is low, the work load is great, the responsibility is high. Read any honest teacher's blog and you'll find stories of being treated like a second-class citizen. There are people who understand teachers (warning: some profanity), but teachers still have to have passion to survive amongst the people who don't understand.
But teachers aren't the only ones.
I couldn't be the member of a school district's support staff if I didn't have passion. I believe in the power of education. It's not just baby-sitting, and it's not even just society's best chance to break the cycle of poverty; it's a gift that all children deserve every year.
That's why I work hard. I lighten the load on teachers. Your webpage is broken? I'm going to do the legwork to solve that problem, you go teach, and I'll email you when I'm done so you can call me because if I call you it would interrupt your class. I spread the word about every success, so teachers and students can value themselves. Three kids in kindergarten recited the alphabet backwards? There's a 12th grader who always holds the door open? Send me a picture, it's going on the website. I make everyday events into magical experiences. You forgot your camera? Let me take four special pictures of you on stage with your kid and his award and I email the best one to the parents, after I remove the red eye and fix the colors, and in the email I tell them that their kid did great and that they should be proud and that parent involvement makes the difference.
I'm passionate about supporting education, and I want to infuse all my work with that passion.
And sometimes that passion has to carry me. When I'm meeting my friend's friends and they have PhD's or corporate salaries and I say I do web work for a school district....and their eyes say "so not only can you not do, you can't teach either?"
Or when the state cuts the budget and there are going to be layoffs and the only thing that every comment on every online news story seems to agree on is "we have to protect the teachers, and we have to protect my money from taxes, so they should fire all the support staff!" (Even though the reality is that "Texas could fire ... all 329,574 non-teacher jobs - and still not save the $11.6 billion in public education cuts...")
That's when my passion for education has to carry me.
But teachers aren't the only ones.
I couldn't be the member of a school district's support staff if I didn't have passion. I believe in the power of education. It's not just baby-sitting, and it's not even just society's best chance to break the cycle of poverty; it's a gift that all children deserve every year.
That's why I work hard. I lighten the load on teachers. Your webpage is broken? I'm going to do the legwork to solve that problem, you go teach, and I'll email you when I'm done so you can call me because if I call you it would interrupt your class. I spread the word about every success, so teachers and students can value themselves. Three kids in kindergarten recited the alphabet backwards? There's a 12th grader who always holds the door open? Send me a picture, it's going on the website. I make everyday events into magical experiences. You forgot your camera? Let me take four special pictures of you on stage with your kid and his award and I email the best one to the parents, after I remove the red eye and fix the colors, and in the email I tell them that their kid did great and that they should be proud and that parent involvement makes the difference.
I'm passionate about supporting education, and I want to infuse all my work with that passion.
And sometimes that passion has to carry me. When I'm meeting my friend's friends and they have PhD's or corporate salaries and I say I do web work for a school district....and their eyes say "so not only can you not do, you can't teach either?"
Or when the state cuts the budget and there are going to be layoffs and the only thing that every comment on every online news story seems to agree on is "we have to protect the teachers, and we have to protect my money from taxes, so they should fire all the support staff!" (Even though the reality is that "Texas could fire ... all 329,574 non-teacher jobs - and still not save the $11.6 billion in public education cuts...")
That's when my passion for education has to carry me.
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