In Why Social Media Matters,
Porterfield and Carnes discuss the many opportunities provided to schools
through social media. They discuss the ways that schools can use social media
to their advantage and the guidelines that must be in place to use social media
appropriately and effectively.
One of the key ideas shared was the ability of social media to
be used as a platform to build relationships with the students, parents, and
community you serve. Along with this, Porterfield and Carnes addressed the
ability for social media to bridge to gap between families and the school
system and provide a way for schools to bring parent and community voice into
the conversation. Drawing in the voices of your stakeholders provides schools
the advantage of being able to listen to the conversations and ideas and adjust
accordingly. After all, as the book reminds us, they are our customers. As an
administrator, having a line of communication that meets the needs of the
community, parents, and families we serve is a key component of the type of
leader I hope to be. It is my hope that if we provide a way to draw out the
comments, questions, and concerns of these stakeholders, we can address their
needs in a proactive way in the future. Through doing this, I hope that we can
build a relationship between the families and our school that is viewed as more
of a partnership and shared vision; helping students discover their passion and
supporting them in the pursuit of that passion.
The book also addresses the idea that social media provides
schools the ability to tell their story and control, to some extent, the messaging
of their actions and decisions. As leaders in today’s culture, it is imperative
that we recognize that our story, our view, and our reasoning, will be told-
correctly or not- by someone else if we do not tell it. That is why we have a
responsibility to use social media as a way to control the messaging of our
decisions and work to brand and promote our school, staff, and students. As we
work at fulfilling this responsibility I believe we have to make sure that we
do so in a sustainable fashion and avoid going through unnatural spikes where
we post and share lots of information and then lulls where we share next to
nothing; if we intend to share we need to be consistent in our social media
presence of it will seem disingenuous to our community. I believe we also need
to ensure that we are representing our school and our students in an equitable
fashion- posting about the football team on Friday night means we also need to
post about the band concert on Wednesday night and the debate tournament on
Saturday.
The last two key ideas that this book addressed were the
idea that we need to make sure we have policies and guidelines in place for
social media and have a clear plan for how we will use social media in moments
of a crisis. I believe that as leaders in schools, the idea of guidelines applies
to both our staff and our students, particularly as it relates to digital
citizenship. Ensuring that both of these two groups understands their own
digital footprint directly supports our mission of building the capacity of our
students to thrive in the 21st century. Ensuring that we have a plan
for our social media use in times of crisis will ensure that we use the
capabilities of social media to spread needed information quickly and
efficiently without causing panic.
As I look at social media use through the lens of Why Social Media Matters I realize the potential
of this entity in schools today- either for good or for bad. In the end, it
comes down to the leadership of the district and building to determine if
social media will be a success, or struggle, in a particular school.
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