School 2.0

Multiple Sign ins on Google

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 02:31:00 +0000

Recently Google decided to stream line accounts and have been upgrading Google Apps. I like many other people have multiple Google Accounts and was quickly running out of browsers to sign into in order to be able to look at all of them at one time. I happened to pop on to Account Settings Page and found a link that said Multiple Sign-ins Off. I decided to further investigate and now I can switch between accounts without signing out. It doesn't work for things like Picasa, but otherwise a neat little feature that you might not have realized was there.

Tools for Scheduling Tweets and Facebook Pages

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 15:52:00 +0000

I happen to love Hoot Suite. I have the application on my Android Device, but I really like how easy it is to set up and then manage for a school. The analytics they offer are also really great and useful tools for figuring out timing of when to post and what kinds of things people are actually reading.

A few other tools like this

Tweet Deck
CoTweet

Read a comparison of the features and you choose.

Let me know if you use something else that you find useful and why?

Celebrations for Schools

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:52:00 +0000

Our school's centennial is around the corner and I am investigating new outlets for social media in this celebration. My search of the web has so far found schools using of course facebook pages and websites exclusive for the celebration. I have found some blogs and flickr albums that have been used as record keepers for the events. Are there any interesting things your school has done with social media that you could see incorporating into an anniversary celebration?

Back to things

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 14:26:00 +0000

A intense year of finishing my writing and managing movement from many different systems has prevented me from doing much writing.

Thinking about Privacy

To begin with I decided to talk a little bit about privacy and social media. Too many times we take people's personal privacy for granted because using technology is so easy to do. When we post a picture on facebook of our child, we don't take a moment to think what about the other children in the picture, are the parents ok with it? We don't think about who can see that picture. As a parent, you might be ok with publicizing the picture to the whole world to see, but the other parents might not. Your child might look great, but there might be something mortifying in the background that you just notice. The types of pictures that are posted online differ and the captions or tags that are posted also differ. One parent may decide to tag every child without thinking about the potential of predator who might encounter that picture and then be able to identify kids if they ran into them on the street.

What about the naked baby picture that we post online. We want to share a cute bath time photo, but in some cases today it's being argued that is child pornography.

Another complication to this is teachers and staff who post pictures of their students. They are excited to share their "portfolio" in a sense of what's going on in the classroom, but in many cases forget to ask the permission of their students' parents.

While privacy is something that many do not think about when posting pictures, there are also many advantages to the technology. Today we can share more pictures with many more people and keep them apprised of what is going on in real time.

How to invite people to an event?

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:59:00 +0000

Here's a quick guide for your invitees to help with getting the word out about an event that you think others might interest other people.

Step 1: You should go to the event page. You can get there by clicking on a link for that event or pressing the events button at the bottom of the page. And then scrolling down until you find the event.

Step 2: On the right side of the page under the picture it click on the link that says "Invite People to Come."

Step 3: Click on Friends you would like to invite.

Step 4 (Optional): Send a personal message about why you are sending them this invitation.

Step 5: Click on Send Invitations.

Back to School

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:06:00 +0000

My busiest time of the year is from June until a few weeks after school starts. I spend my summer updating information and trying to get other people to also help me update information. This summer I also spent time thinking about the social networking that we had done over the first part of the year. From January - June, we mainly just played around and tried to figure out how to use it for our school and how people were interacting with it.

This summer I also spent time trying to figure out the best ways to connect and use social networking. I spent time connecting with alumni, parents, grandparents, and other constituents on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. I posed questions on my profile to see answers to questions were are continuing to discuss as we develop our our social media policies and marketing plans. Some of the answers I got left me to follow up for more information.

It's not surprising that some people accepted my friend requests and others did not. I didn't really expect everyone to do so. But what was surprising was the amount of people who not only accepted, but have begun to message me through these various networks and allowed me to connect with them on a personal level. I am still amazed by the amount of Facebook messages I receive from constituents asking for more information or thanking me for posting something. Yet another way we can connect and transmit the information.

Another big break through this summer was Facebook directly connecting Facebook Fan Pages with Twitter. So as soon as I post something on Facebook it automatically links with my twitter page. And you can link multiple Facebook pages with a single Twitter Account. Then I have twitter post directly to my personal profile on Facebook. If the message doesn't pop up when you get to your facebook fan page to connect directly with Twitter, try going to www.Facebook.com/twitter. You should be able to link Facebook with Twitter.

We have a school page and an alumni page, but only one Twitter account. Our Alumni director monitors the Alumni page and I monitor our school page, but now I don't have to remember everytime she posts something to update Twitter also. Magically her updates automatically do it on the twitter page and then my profile.

Are you still trying to decide whether or not Twittering and Facebook is really worth it? I am going to suggest you try out HootSuite. By setting up an account and using their shortening for really long urls or any urls (http://ow.ly/url/shorten-url) then you can get real time stats about how many people are clicking on your links, where they are clicking them from (twitter or facebook), where the person is located, and much more. It's worth signing up for to see how it's doing. I don't use HootSuite to update twitter, I am doing that in Facebook, but I am using the shortener to condense the urls that I post to Facebook.

Did you take the summer off of all of this? Well, now is the time to get back into the swing of things.
Here are a few ideas to get you started on what to post:

Information about what Alumni are doing? Are their news articles to link to? Or perhaps events or videos? Have your alumni share with you what is going on in their lives that they wouldn't mind sharing with everyone else?

I would suggest leaving personal information off of this, there are better places for that.

Post pictures from Alumni or Parent events and let Alumni and Parents tag themselves.

I would suggest coming up with a policy about posting pictures online of minors. Make sure you have written consent from any parent allowing you to specifically post pictures on Facebook if you are going to do that. Also remind parents not to post pictures of other students without consent from parents. Most people are OK with it, but it's better to err on the side of caution.

Post important event date reminders like Admission Events, Parents Association Events, Back to School Nights, Donor Events, Alumni Events, etc.
Talk about what's going on in your school and current student accomplishments
Link back to your website!
Talk about accomplishments of your school or awards your school has received.
Talk about the accomplishments of your staff and faculty? What's going on in their personal/professional lives that might be interesting to note. For instance is your music teacher performing in a concert that people can go see. Was a teacher recognized for their dedication to something.
Welcome people back to school.

Those are a few to get started. I would love to hear more about what you are doing to get your year started.

How to Block Applications on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:04:00 +0000

Having a name that starts with the first letter of the alphabet means that I get all sorts of requests from people because my name appears first on their friends list. In order to solve this problem, I have blocked a number of applications that I just do not want anything to do with.

There will probably be at least one application out there that someone you are friends with has joined, but you don't want anything to do with. There might be many more. My suggestion is to block the application. Here is one way to do this.

1. Search for the application

2. Click on the Applications Tab in the search to make sure you go to the application and not a group for the application.

3. Find your application in the list and then click on the application

4. And then go to Block Application

How to Suggest a Facebook Fan page to Your Friends

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:58:00 +0000

An easy way to get people to become fans of your Facebook fan page is to have people in your organization Suggest it to their friends.

Here's how to do it:

1. Go the Fan Page (you can type the name in the search if you are not an administrator).
2. Go to the top left side of the Screen and Press Suggest to Friends.3. Once you are done with that, a list of your friends will show up and you can select friends to send the message to by clicking on their names. If your friend is already a fan you won't be able to suggest the page to them.
4. Click Send Invitations and then it will appear on the upper right side of the screen under Requests and say Page suggestion.

Get more fans
Have your fans also help your effort and get them to suggest it to their friends. Isn't that how viral marketing is supposed to work.

Texting Etiquette

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:49:00 +0000

I decided to get rid of texting a few months ago because I really don't use it that often now that I have a SMART phone. I use AIM and Google Talk to do most of what I would do for text messaging and that's included in my Data Plan. And I have access to my e-mail, so I can always be reached. In order to text message my friends who do not have such plans, I either go to their provider's website and send a text message (there are so many other places to do this also) or I use Google's Chat feature to text message.

As more and more people use text messaging, I think it is essential to be aware of some simple suggestions:

1. Make sure someone has a text messaging plan or that they are ok receiving text messages. Some people block receiving text messages at all in order to avoid high expenses. Other people are ok receiving an occasional text message, but don't over do it if they don't have a plan.

2. If you realize you have a bunch of text messages going back and forth with the same person and you can pick up the phone, then do i. Well, if you are talking to middle school-college student, you might only be able to communicate with them through text messaging.

3. During a meeting, if you are going to text, make sure you are not obvious about it.

4. Think about how you respond. Be careful about your wording because like any other written communication. If your "tone" is not interpretted correctly, it could cause hard feelings with your correspondent.

5. Do not text while the car is in motion and you are driving. You need to pay attention to the road.

6. Texting is a great way to share information or communicate quickly. It's not an appropriate place to give bad news or break up with someone.

Texting Etiquette Resources
NY Times Article on Texting at the Dinner Table
Text Messaging An Increasing Cause of Auto Accidents
Text Messaging Teenager Causes Fatal Car Accident In Pennsylvania

How to do a Screen Shot on a PC

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:59:00 +0000

Often when I am helping someone out with a computer problem or developing a website, I need a shot of the person's screen.

It's easier then most people think to take a screen shot on a PC.

You press the PRINT SCRN button which is located above the keypad (on a full size keyboard).
Then open a word processer and paste it (CTRL-V).

Your screen shot should appear.

Save the document and send it.

Vanity Names for Everyone

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:10:00 +0000

Good news for fan pages. On Sunday, June 28 at 12:01am EST Facebook Vanity URLs will be available for everyone. Previously pages created after May 31 or those with less then 1,000 fans could not grab a special name like http://www.facebook.com/john.smith. I would suggest scoring a name before anyone else does.

Resources about Vanity Names
Facebook to Launch Vanity URLs for All
All Facebook Pages Can Get Vanity URLs Starting Sunday at Midnight
Facebook Vanity URLs Are a Good Thing
15 Silliest Facebook Vanity URLs
Miss Out On Your Facebook Vanity URL? Here’s Your Consolation Prize.

Friend Lists on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:50:00 +0000

I noticed yesterday when I went to go accept a friend request that Facebook changed the acceptance slightly. Now you have the option of choosing whether or not a friends messages should appear in your news feeds. By unchecking the box, there messages won't show up. This is great for those people who you really don't want to pay attention to, but want to have sometime of social networking relationship.

The other thing on friend acceptances or even friend requests is a drop down menu that says "Add to list..." This gives you the option of adding friends to specific lists. This is a really useful tool in trying to keep track of the friends you have. If you use your profile for work, then you can create all sorts of lists. For instance an alumni director can classify Facebook friends by graduation year, occupation, interests, committees, etc. Then you can click on that list and see news feeds that are specific to that list.

You can even set specific privacy preferences based upon the list. So if you don't want one group to see something, then you can prevent them from doing so. I would suggest going through your friends and placing them on a list or two to help manage your relationships.

Resources
Facebook Testing Friend Confirmations That Emphasize SMS And News Feed

Away Messages, Facebook Status Messages, Twitter Messages, etc.

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:06:00 +0000

When I was in high school (not so long ago), the way I connected and communicated with friends and acquaintances was through AOL's instant messenger. This continued to be the primary means of communication throughout college, even with Friendster and Facebook starting to come around it still remained the primary means of communication. Status messages would change every five seconds and they would make your "friends" aware of what was going on with you and give them an update about your status. It was common to see "Working on killer math homework, someone help?," or "Showering," or even "Out at Pepe's." It was a time when you probably knew most of the people on your friends list and you didn't really have to be too concerned with people knowing your every move. If you didn't want to see someone's message, then you could simply ignore them. However, if you wanted to know what people were up to you could go and easily find out. Even though AIM is no longer the primary means of communicating for many, the status message is very much a part of social networking and communication.

The status message is essentially the "What's on Your Mind?" on Facebook or the "What are you Doing?" on Twitter. Although who gets this message has changed significantly since my days of Instant Messaging. The messages are no longer a couple of words and your friends or followers see a list of long of everyone who they follow. Today individuals have hundreds to thousands of people with whom they are friends with and these messages show up on their feeds or to their phones. So a message like "cutting onions" may not be something that most of your friends would want to see.

I do continue to post my status on my gmail account. And the people who see that message are people whom I communicate with over e-mail. I didn't really think about my message until my supervisor made a comment about something I had posted, but because we use Google for calendars and document sharing she sees my messages (unless I decided to block her). This isn't a big deal since I never put up anything that I wouldn't want her to see.

I use Facebook to stay in contact with Friends and acquanitances. And I do use the limited profile settings and the Facebook lists in order to protect who sees what information. The types of messages I post on Facebook are:

articles that I find interesting and I think others would also, although this is not necessarily all of my firends;
status messages about my life and my family to keep me connected with friends who I don't always have time to call;
posts to gain insight, advice, or help from other people; this is what social networking is really all about.

I use Twitter to connect with people whom I have never met, but have similar interests. I wouldn't post on Twitter messages about what my daughter is doing right now because I don't know most of the people that are connected to me. Because my messages are out there for anyone to see, I have chosen not to post any type of message that I wouldn't want the whole world to know. I post the following types of messages to Twitter:

Articles of Interest
Links to Websites
ReTweets (other people's messages that I think are good enough to share)
Messages that seek to get other people's comments

I do link my Twitter Account with my Facebook account to update the status messages. So anything I post to Twitter goes to Facebook. If I do a lot of posting then it could be cumbersome on my facebook friends.

It's important to look at your friends, fans, or followers and decide the type of messages you want to post. If you personal account is used for business purposes, I would suggest you think about the type of message you are posting and what the reader on the other side might think.

Some Twitter Basics

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:36:00 +0000

Here is a really good guide for people who are new to Twitter.

The say that only 10% of the people on twitter are doing the posting and everybody else is standing back listening. Perhaps that could be because too many people are unsure of what Twitter is and once they sign up they don't even understand the jargon. Here are a few common questions?

1. What is RT and how do I use it?
RT stands for RT and it is usually used when you are Re-Tweeting something someone else had to say.

The above Tweet is something one of my tweets and I RE-Tweeted from Mashable the @ let's you know who had it. Sometimes you might even have a hand full of names who also tweeted the same thing.

2. What is the @name supposed to mean?
When you want to post a tweet on your page that is directed to someone such as a ReTweet or in response to what someone else has posted.

3. What if I don't want anyone else to see the message?
You can send a DM (Direct Message) that is private between you and that person. Note that you can only send DM to people who are following you.

I would use this option if you are responding to multiple people with the same message. Or I would use the @name, @name, @name instead of doing multiple postings.

How to Sync Your Personal Facebook Account Status to Your Twitter Account

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:47:00 +0000

There are a few ways to sync your Facebook Status to Twitter and whether you want to select which tweets go and which ones do not. Here are a few how tos:

How To Sync Your Twitter and Facebook Status Updates

How to link Twitter to Facebook - A Twitter Tutorial

Should you update your Facebook status from Twitter?

Question for Discussion

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:43:00 +0000

What kinds of things should schools post on Twitter and Facebook during the summer?

How to Post Pictures on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:40:00 +0000

Here is a guide to how to post pictures on Facebook.

Step 1: Sign into your facebook account.

Step 2: Click on Photos on the Bottom of the Screen

Step 3: Click on Create Photo Album at the Top of the Screen

Step 4: Choose a name for your Album, like Vacation to Spain

Step 5: Put a Location for where the pictures took place.

Step 6: Put a Description to help remind you what the pictures are.

Step 7: Privacy.
Everyone- Let's anyone in the world see your pictures (This is the option if you don't care who sees the pictures).
My Network and Friends (This allows people in your networks like Baltimore or Your College, etc. to see the pictures you post).
Friends of Friends (This give people who are friends of your friends the ability to see your photos. If a friend comments on your photos then their friends can look at all of the photos int he album).
Only Friends (Is just your friends).
Customize ... (Well the options are endless)

Step 8: Press submit. As you proceed to the next screen you might get a warning and in order to proceed forward you must say TRUST.

Step 9: Choosing Photos. You now can go and find the pictures that you want to upload. You check the boxes of which ones you want to upload. In order to find pictures in certain directories navigate through the folders on the left side until you get to the directory you want to.

Step 10: Once you have chosen your pictures click on Upload. Once the Uploade process is finished click OK!

Step 11: Now you can organize things. You can add a captions, choose which picture is your album cover or even move the pictures to other albums.

Step 12: When you are done press save changes. You will then be asked to Publish Photos, if you haven't already done so. You should press Publish if you are ready.

You can go through the tabs, to add more, organize them, and edit the info. If you want to Delete the album you can do that too.

Tagging People: In order to do so, you need to drag your mouse over the pictures and you will be able to add names. If you are friends with them then you can click on their name. If they aren't on facebook then you can add their name.

A note about tagging people in pictures: As a school you might consider not to tag anyone and let the people tag themselves. This allows them to make the choice on whether or not they want to identify with the pictures or not. A teacher who has painted her face in yellow and blue for spirit day might not want that picture to show up on her profile, especially in 5-10 years when she decides to go into an entirely different career.

Question for Discussion: Cyber-bullying

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:28:00 +0000

Bullying today takes place in many different places. One of the hardest places to monitor is what goes on outside of the school walls, but still affects our school's community. Cyber-bullying takes place with younger and younger kids. A recent example is a YouTube video that two sixth graders put together called "Top Six Ways to Kill Piper." But Cyber-bullying happens in ways we cannot always see.

What kinds of policies does your school have in regards to cyber-bullying? How has cyber-bullying affected your school?

Articles of Interest:
Cyber-bullies post video showing six ways to kill their classmate
No charges in ‘ways to kill’ classmate YouTube video
STOP Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying.org

TweetDeck vs. Seesmic Desktop

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:26:00 +0000

If you are not using an application, you should definitely consider a desktop application. It allows you to make Twitter more useful with columns that you can customize toward your needs. For instance if you wanted to see who was tweeting about your school you can set up a search about your school and it will be constantly searching within the application.

I wanted to share my experience with two twitter Desktop Applications: Seesmic Desktop and TweetDeck. Both applications are very similar in the face that they are layed out horizontally. The people you are following are in one column, there is another column for direct messages, another for Replies and so on. Both applications are great, but there are some key advantages of Seesmic for a school.

Seesmic Desktop is a great alternative and provides a couple key enhancements that would help with day to day tweeting. The first is that it allows you to monitor multiple twitter accounts, so you can deal with your personal one and your work one in one place. This saves so much time! It's also great because someone you are following on one account might have something you want to share on the other account and it's easy to do that. Another advantage of this application is that it integrates with Facebook much better than TweetDeck. It allows you to see the full message and TweetDeck cuts off the messages.

Try these applications out:
Seesmic Desktop
TweetDeck

You will need Adobe® AIR® in order to run these programs.

Using Social Media Tools to Listen In

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:07:00 +0000

Using social media is not only about creating content. It's about listening. It's important for schools or organizations to listen in on the discussions taking place online. Hearing the messages out there can help development of your schools online profile and help you figure out how your messages might transmit (even if it is something you do not begin). Listening in on the conversations taking place can help to generate content or even guide the messages we send out. You might find that there are conversations outside of your normal methods of transmission that you might want to participate.

It's important to remember that monitoring is not about controlling the messages out there, but rather about making use of what is being said. Sometimes the best marketing comes from those one-line messages such as "I miss XXX school."

Conversations may not just take place across one type of social media, but rather in six different venues. It can be overwhelming, but there are a number of tools that you can set up to search to find out what is being said and most of the tools are free.

Questions for Discussion

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:30:00 +0000

Does your school have a formalized marketing plan for Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Blogs, etc.?
Do you have long-term and short term goals?

How does your plan fit into the strategic goals of the rest of the school?

Adding Twitter to Your Facebook Fan Page

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:34:00 +0000

My husband has just started twittering for his school. He was trying to figure out how to get his tweets to show up on his fan page in a way that would display nicely. I had tried before, but had been unsucessful. He was definitely persistent and found a great solution.

A lot of schools have used Socializer or the RSS Feed to get their Tweets onto the Facebook. A better solution is a Facebook Application called Involver Fan Page. It automatically adds your tweets to your Facebook Fan Page under a Tab called Twitter. It even creates a link to your twitter account. I was even able to sucessfully connect the same Tweet with two different fan pages.

How to Unfriend People on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:14:00 +0000

Over the last couple days I got a couple of people who asked about how to unfriend a person on Facebook.

The first question I always ask is why do you want to unfriend that person? Is it because you just don't want to read all of their millions of status messages? You can simply hide those messages from other people seeing them.

I ask that question because I think it's important to think about the ramifications of unfriending someone. As a school or even as a teacher, I think it is important to think about what unfriending might mean to that person. By unfriending them are you cutting off your relationship with them forever?

They do not get a notification that you are no longer friends. But they can no longer look at your profile and if they would like to request your friendship again they are unable to do that. You have to re-friend them.

If you want to limit what they see of your profile with out cutting them off, you can always limit their access to what they can see by using the limited profile or friend lists option.

How to Unfriend

If you decide to unfriend them go to the top of your screen and click on All Friends.

Next down to the friend you want to get rid of and press the X next to their name.

Resources

Facebook: Hiding Messages on your Feed

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Tue, 12 May 2009 01:54:00 +0000

Since the update of the latest Facebook design, I have seen and talked to a number of people who are frustrated and overwhelmed by the feeds.

A user experiences:
A teacher who is friends with former students was frustrated with their constant status changes and the excessive use of profanity in their status messages. She wanted to maintain the relationship with them, but didn't want to see their away messages and didn't know how to get rid of them without "un-friending" that person.

Often when individuals post to their facebook account, they do not think about who is necessarily reading on the other end. When our facebook friends post things they are not necessarily thinking about who is looking at that picture. This holds true even for a personal account. You might only intend for your friends to see you drinking or wearing an interesting outfit, but perhaps their 9 year-old son or daughter walks in while they are browsing through the pictures.

Within a school, your teachers might have similar experiences to the teacher above. Or even your school presence might have that same experience. A student who is your facebook friend might posts a picture of something you would rather not see or creates so many messages that your feed is inundated.

It's very easy to maintain that relationship, but not see their feeds.

How to Hide Feeds

Take your mouse and drag it over the status message and a little button will appear that says Hide.

Click on Hide and then Hide Person's Name.
And then their feeds will no longer appear in your News Feeds.
If you make a mistake or want to see who you have hidden, you can scroll to the bottom of the feed and click "Edit Options."

Facebook Resources

Questions for Discussion

noreply@blogger.com (Ali) — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:20:00 +0000

Teachers are on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Linkedin, etc. Do your teacher have concerns with following the school? Do they have concerns by the school following/friending them?

What about with Parents?

What about the connections they make with students? Does your school have guidelines for how to interact with students in the digital world?