ODYSSEYWARE

Your students and their parents are tweeting, socializing, and sharing information via social media outlets everyday. Their messages are not sanitized, filtered, nor distilled, yet they yield great power. On the other end of the spectrum, the information that administrators and communication directors release to the public has been carefully written, removing any words or phrases that may cause controversy, and crafting sentences cautiously to deliver precisely aimed messages. 

Unfortunately, the voices and posts of the masses may be loud enough to drown out your messages. A small but heated discussion by the school board will no doubt be interpreted as a major conflict on Twitter, or a tiny policy change may be linked to a civil liberties violation then spread through Facebook to hundreds.

 While there may be a place and a need for your sanitized messages, it may be time to expand the scope of your communications to mimic that of your constituency. They’re communicating to others in your community with their opinions and even their understanding of the facts.

 In a recent blog post, Reaching for the Heart: 5 Tips for School District Communications Directors, Miguel Guhlin suggests,

 “As a citizen-journalist, as a person who has embraced social media as a way to share the exciting actions being taken by educators around me, I also see an important need for K-12 educators to tell ‘their’ story, sharing what is happening at their schools, in their classrooms, in the offices, as openly and transparently as possible. My bias is that I believe that most educators live in fear of speaking up, fear of losing their jobs, being censured, being called into their supervisor’s office or at Human Resources and asked, with the force of temporal power lurking behind each word, ‘So, tell us. What do you really believe and why should we continue to employ you if you’re going to say this about us?’ Instead, anyone with the temerity to be transparent about the work they are doing should be celebrated and applauded.”

 Mr. Guhlin has great suggestions for diving into social media, and tips for success on his website.

 As innovative educators and administrators, it’s time to ask the hard questions: Are you using social media to tell your stories, applaud accomplishments, and discuss local initiatives? If not, maybe it’s time to start.