The Season of the Witch

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The season for non-stop presentations is finally over, and I get a bit of a breather until the Spring. One more on Nov. 10, and then a bit of a break. I am excited about presenting to a group of non-profit directors in my region in the spring, and another for the Pennsylvania School Public Relations Association at their annual conference. Instead, I’m spending this weekend focusing on my son’s birthday. He was born on Halloween, and turns 21. Where did that time go, anyway?

Last week, I presented at the Rondout Valley School District in the heart of the Catskill Mountains, and the people there couldn’t have been nicer (once I found them). In this small school district, a fifth-grade student created a Facebook page in the name of Rondout Valley, but forgot to put the “t” on District. It’s clearly not a good thing to have this Facebook page rolling around, largely unmonitored, without an official Rondout page. So I hope that after my presentation, they’ll get around to creating a presence on social media.

http://www.slideshare.net/evelynmccormack/rondout-valley-presentation

ESchool News: Avoiding Social Media Gaffes

After having just participated in a webinar about social media policies for school districts, I was fortunate to run across this article by Nora Carr of the Guilford County Schools in North Carolina. It’s another example of how school public relations professionals are providing oars to those of us still navigating the unclear waters of social media. Among other points, Ms. Carr (who received the Presidents Award this year from the National School Public Relations Association) notes: “Legitimate concerns regarding federal e-Rate dollars and Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) regulations aside, avoiding social media isn’t the answer.”

The article also lists 11 tips to “avoid committing major social media gaffes,” including the development of guidelines, keeping your personal business private, and resisting any temptation to accept “friend requests” students and even parents on social networking sites. At the same time, while policies and procedures can help, school districts also need to teach and train employees to use social media wisely, writes Ms. Carr.

Great advice.

Webinar on Social Media Policies for School Districts

Last week, I attended a webinar sponsored by the Lower Hudson Regional Information Center, “21st Century Policies,” featuring Janell Hallgren, manager of policy services at Erie 1 BOCES. Janell, who runs a service manned by five professionals including three with law degrees, covered the gamut of services Erie 1 offers in the burgeoning field of social media policies for school districts. “We don’t reinvent the wheel in policy services,” said Janell, but “obviously technology is changing the way we communicate and the way we do business.” In a nutshell, she said, most districts simply need to update existing policies — most notably Codes of Conduct and Acceptable Use Policies. This webinar has been archived and is free to view now. So check it out. I found it invaluable in understanding the concerns and issues around 21st century school district governance and policy.

 

A Social Media Webinar

Last week, I did a training webinar with my colleague, Barbara Bradley of the New York State School Boards Association, titled “Social Media in Your School District.” We presented with Barbara in Albany and myself in White Plains with my new favorite tool, Adobe Connect. Registrants were able to listen to us speak while they followed along with our slides.

A few tips and one warning. First, the warning: This webinar is 90 minutes long, so set aside the time, if you can. If you click on the link below, you’ll be taken directly to the webinar recording.  No need for a user name or password to view it.

The file is large, so it could take a few minutes to load. There is a leader of silence lasting about 5 seconds before the audio introduction to the webinar, and about 20 seconds of silence around 6 minutes in, when microphones weren’t on.  Just wait about 20 seconds and you will hear the presenter without missing anything. If you hear audio drop for a second from time to time, that’s just a streaming issue.

You could have a problem with a firewall on your end, either on your PC or a physical firewall protecting your network.   Have your technical staff review the logs or open both fully to breeze.neric.org.

The good news is that the accompanying handouts can be downloaded from within the recording, so take advantage of those. You can just click on one of the documents in the “File Share” box and then click “save to my computer”. Have fun! I did!

http://breeze.neric.org/p82447197/

The Case For Social Media in Schools (Mashable)

One of my favorite websites in the universe, Mashable, recently published a piece titled “The Case for Social Media in Schools,” which among other things lists six reasons social media should be used in schools (and not a moment too soon).

Although much has changed since I first began presenting on this subject three years ago, and I see more adopters than detractors these days, I still get people in public education who think I’ve lost my marbles when I speak about social media in the classroom. Not to mention the occasional IT person who simply says, “Can’t be done.” Just a look at this Mashable piece and you’ll see that nothing could be further from the truth.

The Case For Social Media in Schools.

Saratoga Springs

Heading to upstate New York tomorrow morning, to present to public school superintendents on two topics: budgets and social media. Yikes — I hope I don’t put them to sleep. I have a feeling they’ll be more interested in the budget presentation than in the social media presentation, and certainly the former took me a bit out of my comfort zone. I’m not exactly known for presentations about passing budgets, for a reason. Public schools passing public budgets is one of the biggest struggles we have here in the good old state of New York, and don’t let them tell you it’s a recent struggle. It’s been going on since I was a cub education reporter more than 20 years ago, covering my first school district. And what happened? The budget tanked and school opened without busing for kindergartners. At public budget hearings in that district, parents literally stood, turned to face me (representing the local newspaper), and pointed their fingers in my face. The newspaper had not endorsed the budget. On the contrary, the editorial went after the dysfunctional Board of Education with a vengeance; criticized the community for being torn down the middle, separating the African-American community from the middle-class white community.

So much for a recent challenge.

In my “how we passed our budgets” presentation, I’m going to do the best I can (comfort zone or not) to show NY’s superintendents that public education is under fire these days from every vantage point. People are downright seething about their taxes, charter schools and virtual schools are popping up everywhere, and yes — there are alternatives. We need to stop sitting on our haunches and wake up, at least from a communications standpoint. We never had to “sell” or “market” our school districts before, God forbid. Not any more.

Here’s a look at my presentation on budgets:

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Building a Positive Public Image on Prezi

Documentary Examines the “Race to Nowhere”

“Race to Nowhere,” a documentary that examines our test-crazy society, opens Sept. 10 in New York and Los Angeles, and no matter where you stand on the issue of No Child Left Behind, this film will get you thinking about how much we test students. And whether it’s wise.

I’ve got a trailer from the film below. And the producers of Race to Nowhere are permitting educators to attend screenings. There’s also a Facebook page, a discussion board, and other resources for school leaders. You can also pre-order the film here.

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Communication in a Web 2.0 World

Image via CrunchBase

I have to post the presentation I recently did, with the help of colleague Pam Berger, at our annual Leadership Institute at Southern Westchester BOCES. I really enjoyed doing this presentation because, at Pam’s recommendation, we used Prezi, a relatively new Web 2.0 presentation tool. Just love the way this tool amps up the average presentation. It’s a dramatic departure from your average ho-hum PowerPoint presentation. But it also contains some decent social media suggestions, tools and links. Check it out:

Communicating in a Web 2.0 World

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How Private, Independent Schools Use Social Media

Shane Haggerty, a colleague from the fine state of Ohio, recently interviewed Jesse Bardo, executive director of EdSocialMedia, the group organized to represent private independent schools and their efforts to use social media to promote their schools to alumni, prospective students and the public. Shane,

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How to Create a Facebook Fan Page

If you’re wondering how to create a fan page for your business, non-profit, or organization, take a look at the article I’ve published on Suite 101. It’s a simple look at setting up a fan page, along with information about getting your page a customized URL. Here’s the link.

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