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For those that have followed my journey as a principal, you know that social media is a big deal on our campus. It started with me being the lead storyteller sharing the awesome happening in our building as I worked to build capacity in others. Our staff quickly caught on and our #FMSTeach hashtag became a collective location to not only showcase how our mission was alive and well throughout our daily lessons and activities, but also a way to share professional development in a 24/7 manner and model the kind of digital leadership we want to see within our students. Our tech teacher and myself converted our hashtag pictures over to our school Facebook and Instagram pages and we really felt like we were lighting the world on fire. Then I read Kids Deserve It by my good friends Todd Nesloney and Adam Welcome and realized…hey, they have kids posting to social media. Time to kick it up a notch! We then taught our tech interns as well as our student council publicist how to post to our social media pages. We added Snapchat to the repertoire and away we went! As much as we had grown into telling our story from many perspectives, I also felt as though something was missing…our parent voice. I’ve spent the past year really trying to figure it out. It finally hit me this past weekend when I wasn’t able to attend our track meet. Our parents are the best storytellers when it comes to their children…why not hand the reins over to them! I made one post with a picture of our students warming up before the meet on our Facebook page. (see below)
Immediately, the crowd went wild! I immediately started getting pictures posted from the meet…so many more pictures than I could have even hoped to have captured myself. I also had some that weren’t able to post, but texted me, so I could post. YES! What an amazing example of true parent involvement and engagement. It’s amazing how such a simple post could make a huge difference.
As I’ve had the opportunity to present about how to use social media in schools, many of the questions I get have to do with the fear of something going wrong. Why would you think to use Twitter as a tool in the classroom with impulsive middle schoolers? What if the kids post something inappropriate? Why would you want your setting to allow people to comment?
Could something go wrong? Of course! But what if things went right? What if we spent our energy focusing on the good? What if we enlisted a crew of those with a stake in the conversation?
In traditional #LeadLAP style, I conclude this post with a challenge for you. How might you take growth steps to amplify the voices of staff, students and parents to share the story of your school or classroom? Be sure to take a moment and post to our #LeadLAP hashtag so that we can all learn from your ideas. Shelley and I cannot wait to see the ideas from this amazing PLN! #BetterTogether