District Administration - July/August 2011 - (Page 30)

Social Media The dilemma of the 5,000-seat stadium. Even texting, a form of social media, has made it into Tahquitz High classrooms. Connecting through polleveryone .com, the school’s U.S history class uses overhead projectors to present multiplechoice questions, while students use their own cell phones to text the numerical code of the answer. Students without phones collaborate with others who do. “It’s an anonymous way for students to engage and contribute,” Roe explains, adding that the teacher can immediately assess how well students are picking up on class content and identify which information needs to be retaught. “And it’s all at no charge. That’s the key thing.” Communicate With Community Twitter is taking on an increasingly large role in large districts, including the Houston Independent School District in Texas, especially when it comes to communicating about school business. “We have a tendency in urban settings to believe that shows up in the newspapers, but only about 8 percent of our population will see it there,” says Superintendent Terry Grier, who started tweeting to teachers, parents and the press when he arrived two years ago. “I use Twitter primarily to share good news,” Grier continues, who often tweets from district and school functions to his almost 1,000 Twitter followers. Grier has also tweeted about district initiatives such as a new instrument for evaluating teachers, accompanied by a link to a district blog that covers the changed evaluation process in detail. “The more ways you can find to communicate, the more transparent you and your district can be,” he insists. In contrast, Cawthorne says his 6,900-student, 11-school district in Weymouth, Mass., still makes effective use of 30 July/August 2011 A Severance Middle School student in the Weld Re-4 School District in Windsor, Colo., uses Glogster EDU, an online, collaborative learning platform for teachers and students, to create and share a Glog, which is a graphics blog or online media poster. a more traditional approach for reaching parents and the public. “We subscribe to a communications system that will call the house and send out emails,” he says. “In our environment, we feel these communication tools are the best way to reach 99 percent of the people we’re trying to reach. Parents are Facebook page to report their classroom activities several times daily and post pictures and videos. Their audience consists of peers in other Gunn classrooms, as well as parents and grandparents—and aunts and uncles, for that matter—who have been identified as “I use Twitter primarily to share good news.” —Terry Grier, superintendent, Houston Independent School District coming to evening activities, so why muddy the waters if the system works?” Weymouth teachers, meanwhile can communicate with parents either by e-mail or telephone. Cawthorne admits that these approaches may seem old-fashioned, but he’s not opposed to social media for administrative communications. The district’s high school and one of its middle schools have recently started using Facebook for that very purpose. “Why not, if you want to try and communicate?” he says. “But it can’t be the only way.” First-Graders on Facebook In the Council Bluffs (Iowa) Community School District, teachers at the former Gunn Elementary School, which is now College View Elementary, are leading the district into the social-networking age. Two years ago, first-grade teacher Erin Schoening and her husband Devin, the district’s K12 technology coach, devised the idea of having her students use a class “friends” and who therefore can view and respond to those postings. Three or four times a day, they find announcements on the page such as “We are editing our nonfiction books. Tomorrow we are going to start typing them!” or a set of photographs accompanied by the message “We hope you enjoy the pictures of the first-graders working in math workshop.” “In the past, I had kept a blog to communicate with families, and I noticed that no one was reading it,” Erin Schoening recalls. “But there are so many people on Facebook, and it’s so accessible that the information is right in your face.” Schoening is quick to point out that she alone has sign-in privileges for the class Facebook page and that she supervises all student postings. The parents of her students have signed permission slips allowing their children varying levels of involvement, such as using their names and appearing in pictures. (A few have exercised an option to keep their children District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - July/August 2011

District Administration - July/August 2011
Contents
From the Editor
News Update
Facilities News
Inside the Law
District Profile
Administrator Profile
The Social Media Dilemma
Is Year-Round Schooling on Track?
After 50 Years, Ethnic Studies Still Controversial
Finding the Right Purchasing Solution
Look, Listen, Learn
Research Center
Supervisor’s Opinion
Going Mobile
Superintendent’s Insight
Books
Product Focus
New Products
Online Edge

District Administration - July/August 2011