Building Community Engagement

An online strategy for Willowbank School

2010

Context

•  Willowbank School

•  Multi-cultural

•  Multi-lingual parent group

•  Approximately 800 learners

•  Silver Enviro School

Issues

•  Communication with parent group perceived as erratic

•  Newsletters not checked online by all parents

•  Website often perceived as out of date

•  Aiming to be a paperless school

Proposal

•  Discover the potential of virtual environments to develop an online strategy to nurture relationships with our various communities through the use of social media.

Opportunities

•  Parents informed on a continuous basis via Facebook and Twitter

•  Marketing of events and needs reaches the widest possible audience

•  Business sponsorship possibilities through online advertising

•  Ability to utilise language tools on applications allowing equitable access to information for non English speakers – Facebook has 69 language options and Twitter has 6.

•  Opportunities to post links to websites and posts on supporting learning at home

•  Facebook supports the use of Survey Monkey for community surveys and feedback

•  Facebook and Twitter able to reach a wide audience over a short period of time to facilitate planning for 10th anniversary

•  Clobby Group Chat – chatroom for invited guests on Facebook – generate focus groups

Facts

•  More than 55.8% of Facebook users are female

•  More than 41.9% of Facebook users are in the 25-44 age range

•  http://www.checkfacebook.com/

•  Twitter allows for short tweets which can redirect to a web page or act as reminders

•  Facebook allows for embedding of photos, video, surveys and larger amounts of information as well as possibilities for business sponsorship

Risks and Rewards

Rewards

•  Continuous, up to date streaming of information

•  Parent community informed of updates and availability of information

•  Quick, easy to access information provided in a variety of languages

Risks

•  Online environments can be open to hacking

•  Not all parents will have access to online environments

•  Consistent monitoring of sites and tweets/posts required

•  Teacher facebook accounts need to be privacy protected

Impact

•  Community informed of information and events

•  Paperless school a possible reality

•  Administration of accounts required by SLT

•  Facebook and Twitter settings required to be tightly controlled

•  Social Media etiquette professional learning required for teachers and available to parents

Suggestions

•  Facebook account in the name of Willowbank School created

•  Twitter account in the name of Willowbank School created

•  An online strategy account to be set up for the updating and monitoring of the above accounts

Action Plan

•  Professional learning for staff and parents

•  Facebook and Twitter etiquette resources available

•  Specific administrator email set up so that school has continuing access

•  Careful monitoring of privacy and sharing settings

•  Professional updates and tweets

•  Monitoring of site by SLT

Personnel

•  Administrator of strategy

•  ICT facilitator liaison for professional learning

•  Marketing Strategist support

•  Teacher input

•  Parent education and support

Timeline

Term 2:

•  Accounts set up

•  Strategy advertised to parent community

•  Initial posts completed

Term 3:

•  Teacher education on online etiquette

•  Online strategy explored for business opportunities

•  Aiming for X to sign up within term 3

•  Incentives for “liking” and “re tweeting” of posts

Who is using social media?

Twitter

•  Several professionals

•  @yis – Yokohama International School

•  @sumprimary – Summerlands Primary

•  @tawaint – Tawa Intermediate School

•  @ptengland – Point England School

Facebook

•  Gifted Kids Programme

•  Allergy New Zealand

•  TED

•  JPPS Elementary School – Canada

•  Kidicorp

What would we tweet/post?

Tweet

•  Notices

•  Sports results

•  Sports cancellations

•  Reminders for mufti etc

•  Meeting reminders

•  Newsletter links on website

Post

•  Event videos

•  Event photos

•  Links to websites/KnowledgeNet

•  Information for parents

•  Event information

•  Surveys

Ongoing

Analysing

•  Engagement

•  Growth of community

•  Visits to individual pages

•  http://www.facebook.com/insights

Monitoring

•  Reputation online

•  Trawl content on Facebook and Twitter

•  Tweet funnel for monitoring of tweets to align with Willowbank values

•  http://openfacebooksearch.com/

•  http://www.socialmention.com/

Traffic Generators

•  Generate via existing strategies ie newsletter

•  Buttons on website

•  Email to parents

•  Print run in partnership with local newspapers

How does this all fit together?

KnowledgeNet

Facebook Twitter

• Semi Private • S, T, P use • Password protected • Learning focus

Looking to the future …

Major Impact •  Cloud computing

•  Collaborative environments

•  Game based learning

•  Mobile technology

•  Augmented reality

•  Flexible displays

Challenges •  Poor digital media literacy for educators

•  Out of date pedagogy and materials

•  Poor strategy on evolution

•  Failure to adapt

•  Lack of support for non traditional learning environments

A recent report indicated the top six technologies that will impact on education in the next 3-5 years:

http://thejournal.com/Articles/2010/04/13/6-Technologies-That-Will-Shape-Education.aspx?Page=1

Still unsure?

•  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng

Activity to date

•  5 followers

•  11 tweets

•  Follow us on twitter @willowbanknz

•  12 people like us

•  6 posts to wall

•  1 photo album

•  1 discussion

•  Like us at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Howick/Willowbank-School/125796360796155

Web links

•  http://www.checkfacebook.com/

•  http://www.businessweek.com/idg/2010-06-19/keep-kids-safe-on-facebook.html

•  http://www.pcworld.com/article/199162/can_you_really_trust_facebook.html?tk=hp_new

•  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10650497&pnum=2

•  http://thejournal.com/Articles/2010/04/13/6-Technologies-That-Will-Shape-Education.aspx?Page=1