A Hands-on Social Media Workshop for School Administrators

Join us on September 24, 2010 at Annie Wright School, Tacoma, WA for a social media bootcamp experience.

Learn how social media can help you strengthen relationships with the constituents that matter most- your students, parents, faculty & alumni.

Who should attend: K-12 or higher-ed administrators and staff in Admissions, Marketing, Communications, External-affairs, Advancement, or Alumni/Development.

This full day workshop provides an in-depth, hands-on introduction to social media technology. Participants spend the day creating content in order to learn how to apply these tools to their own outreach.

Listen to recent Bootcamp participants talk about their experiences:

Cannon School Director of Admission Talks About the Value of the edSocialMedia Bootcamp

Texas Lutheran University Director of Admission, Dale Gaubatz, discusses his impressions and experience from the edSocialMedia San Antonio Bootcamp

Time/Location

Date: September 24, 2010

Registration: 8:30 AM to 9:00 AM

Bootcamp: 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM – (Lunch is provided)

Annie Wright School
27 North Tacoma Avenue, Tacoma, WA 98403
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Workshop Format

The hour long introductory keynote focuses on foundational social media ideas and case studies leaving the rest of the day to put what you’ve learned into practice.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

Working with your team:

• generate a minimum of 8 tweets spread out over two hours posted to #edsocialmedia.
• write two, well crafted articles for the blog (between 450 – 750 words)
• create a photoset in Flickr of 10 photos
• post a brief (around 2 minutes) video for YouTube

Take a look at the great content that folks from our last Bootcamp produced in just four hours!

What to bring

You are strongly encouraged to bring a laptop with wireless network connectivity, and a digital camera or digital-camcorder if you have them.

Cost

Our sponsor WhippleHill is underwriting a portion of the registration fee for this event, bringing it down from $349 to $249.

Registration : $249 ($215 per person for groups of 2 or more)

Contact Info

Please kindly direct all inquiries to info@edsocialmedia.com or call Proof at 1-877-PROOF-01.

Our Sponsors

This event is made possible in part by Annie Wright School, a boys and girls day program for preschool through grade eight and a boarding program for girls in grades 9-12.

This event is also made possible by the generous support of our sponsors:

edSocialMedia Trainers

Jesse Bardo is the Director of edSocialMedia. He leads ESM’s expanded strategy and consulting services, working directly with schools on creating social media plans.

Refund policy

ESM will be unable to issue refunds to registered participants who do not attend, however attendees who have to cancel due to illness or other unavoidable conflict may receive credit towards future edSocialMedia events.

Please direct all cancellation related inquiries to info@edsocialmedia.com

Photo credit: chethanjs, Seattle Space needle skyline via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution.

I figured that some enterprising college would hop right on this just like Yale did with Glee, and BYU looks like it’s the first out of the gate.  This little clip is pretty funny (notice the dude on the ground at :18) and it’s received over 130,000 hits in under two days.  Not bad.  The lesson here of course is that it pays to be quick and nimble and able to hop on trends like this one.  I know a lot of college admission offices that would love to get their brand in front of 130,000 in a year, let alone two days.

On of the best sessions I attended at the Boston event was from Karen Rubin from HubSpot.  Now the reason I say this and the reason for this post is that this was the one session I keep going back to my notes to see what Karen had to say.

When I think about the type of post to write. What did Karen say?

When I think about what to share in my next post. What did Karen say?

When I think about audience. What did Karen say?

So… the reason for this post… is as Karen said, when you want to share something, blog about it.  So here I go… here is the presentation (on SlideShare) she gave at WordCamp Boston last January.  I hope you find it as useful as I did.

Recently, I heard a response that was quite refreshing. The communications director simply said, “Oh, marketing isn’t a dirty word here.”

I’ve worked with and for independent schools where the mere mention of marketing during a lunchtime conversation would send faculty members ranting and raving about how it’s an education, not an advertising campaign.

I get it. Teachers teach. Their end product is both tangible and abstract. There’s no way to conveniently package it and wrap it in a box.

And marketers market. Even if we hide out in the communications office and update websites, the ultimate goal is to promote the school, its faculty and the students as a way to recruit new faculty, administration, and of course, students.

One of schools’ best marketing and communications resources today is social media. Instead of limiting a message or news story about the tenth grade science fair to the people we know we know, social media allows us the exponential possibility of sharing it with so many that we don’t know. And that makes administrators and faculty alike, nervous.

The loss of control is terrifying for schools that like to keep a tight grip on their reputation. Tossing the message into a giant game of telephone, the analogy that is often made, means that the message could get tangled and mangled and no one would know or be able to reign it in.

Even more, some independent schools like to limit the reach their faculty and students have on social media. What schools think they are doing is controlling their image, but in essence they are destroying it.

Social media is about transparency. And transparency is about getting a naked look at what really goes on. In order for it to work successfully, a school has to have confidence in its faculty, students, parents and alumnae. It has to trust that the school is worth promoting, directly or indirectly.

Instead of worrying about the message your school is sending on social media platforms, consider the message your school is sending by NOT engaging with social media at all.

Reading Principal Orsini’s letter I immediatly thought of my grandfather, who in the early 1980′s when microwave ovens were gaining popularity, not only refused to own one, but refused to be in a room with a microwave oven on. 25 years later I recall him saying “I can’t come up with one reason anyone would need a microwave oven.” Sound familiar?

I am proud to say my school, Xaverian Brothers High School, went in the other direction and offers technology classes for middle school teachers, parents, and administrators.

These popular and successful workshops include podcasting, webdesign, and photoedititing, as well as;

All You Ever Wanted to Know About Facebook:

An overview of Facebook, how it works, it’s main features, and why it is so popular with high school students. A look at the possible dangers of Facebook. We will set up Facebook accounts as a class exercise and experience Facebook first hand (this will be voluntary).

Internet Safety:

The Internet offers tremendous learning resources. As our children
reach out online to gain knowledge and engage in research, global communication and information sharing they are also vulnerable to exploitation. Participants will learn how to block Internet access at home and the signs that your child is at risk online.

We are educators, we have a responsibility to these students and parents.
I take particular issue with the Principal’s line “Over 90% of all homework does not require the Internet, or even a computer.” Will they be doing their math homework on an abacus? Is this the best way to prepare the children (and yes I agree they are still children) for high school and beyond?

As a new father I understand the desire to protect our children from any and all potential harm, but to presume that the only people on facebook are predators and bullies is ignorant. I worked on graduate school papers and presentations on facebook, exchanged information about enrollment and demographic trends with professional colleagues, reconnected with old friends, and looked at pictures of my friends children in Seattle…all in the same day. Facebook has enormous potential for all levels of education and life.

Mr. Orsini concludes the letter with “some people advocate that the parents and the school should teach responsible social networking to students because these sites are part of the world in which we live. I disagree, it is not worth the risk…”

Most people and institutions, including Xaverian disagree with Mr. Orsini. As educators we have decided to educate; because as he said himself, these sites are part of the world we live in and these sites are quickly changing and shaping the world we live in, they cannot be ignored, this is not a trend.

I work in a school of almost one thousand students and have learned the fastest way to ensure an adolescent does something, is to forbid them from doing it! Demonizing the “scourge” of social media all but ensured those at Ben Franklin Middle School not on facebook soon will be; I would think a middle school principal would have a deeper understanding of middle school student behavior.

So Whenever the 17 year old rebellious teenager in me rises up and compels me to post something potentially offensive or overly controversial on Twitter, Facebook or the like I remember how, at 37 years old I chose to edit myself…I friended my 64 year old mother on Facebook.

It feels like we have three different school calendars in four different places, and we do have an aging server that needs to be replaced soon.  We realized that we need to start looking for a new email/calendar tool.  Microsoft and Google are the hot “free” products out there and both have some neat collaborative tools.

The problem comes in that this clunker that we have has some quirky features that our students absolutely love.  They can see who is online at any given moment, they can instantly chat with those that are online, and we have a great “Discussions” folders system where faculty and students can direct messages to various audiences.

Since word has gotten out that we’re making a switch students have been stopping me in the hall and sending emails to our Tech Director begging us not to switch.  They love it and specifically say that a change will drastically affect our school’s culture.

So now what do we do?

Us, we’re heading back to the drawing board and making sure that the tech that we’ll move to fits our needs and our culture.  It is the culture that we failed to take into account when we first started looking at this switch.  We covered needs, functionality, price and aesthetics; we neglected culture, and that almost led to a riot.  Well, not really, but the transition would have been much more difficult had we jumped the gun and rolled this out in September.

This year I taught a very tech-intensive US history class.  Students worked on wikis, Google Sites, Twitter, Evernote, Google Docs … in other words, a pretty comprehensive sweep of tech tools.  Throughout the year, what struck me was not how much my students already knew, but how much they had to learn.  From downloading and installing programs to search techniques on Google, it continually surprised me how little tasks would need to become mini-tutorials.  Admittedly, it surprised me how much I had to teach these “digital natives.”  What is useful in the Facebook, texting world is not necessarily fungible in the academic world.  Using Facebook is not the same as utilizing Facebook.  Things like collaborating to make plans or to compete in a game do not necessarily translate into collaborating academically.

Sometimes I fear that when we call students ‘digital natives’, we forget that there will always be a good amount of students who dislike technology.  No matter what the technology, there will always been some who find it difficult to learn these skills.  I had a significant number of students who had real antipathy toward using technology as a vehicle of assessment.  I would be the last one to give these students a ‘pass’ on learning technology skills, but if we as educators forget that they are there we could be doing them a real disservice.  Planning lessons and activities assuming a uniform tech-friendly group of students is a mistake I have made myself.  This rather obtuse, yet oft-employed, assumption makes results in inefficient classroom teaching.  Perhaps more dangerously, we also risk students turning away from technology as a practical tool, which could severely hinder them in the 21^st century world.

Getting students to think about social media and technology from an academic or “life skills” perspective is something we must consciously teach and not assume they bring to class as digital natives.  Students are neither totally apathetic nor uniformly excited about technology.  They are diverse in their outlook and capabilities.  This is no different from any other skill we try to teach in class.  Differentiated learning must expand to technology skills, just as good teachers apply it to core objectives.

They have been posting daily on the Irish Studies blog, and have some fantastic picture sets on Flickr and videos on YouTube. They have kept their followers up to speed on new content and activities on Twitter as well.

Bill and his fellow travelers are giving us a fantastic example of what can be done with social media. Hard to think of a better use than documenting and sharing a trip abroad. Kudos to all of them!

Bill has written about his use of social media for this trip before, and I am hoping that he will have some more insights for us after his experience this year.

In the mean time, I have enjoyed following along vicariously. Thanks to Bill and the rest of the MKA travelers for sharing the trip with us!

In addition to contributing regular posts to edSocialMedia.com (be sure to check out his first post “Is Your School Afraid of Facebook?”), Jesse will lead the charge on ESM’s expanded strategy and consulting services. This will include working directly with schools on developing and implementing social media plans (more on this coming soon).

A little background information on Jesse – as an Admission Counselor & Communications Coordinator at Northfield Mount Hermon School, Jesse has worked closely with the school’s communications team on the development and implementation of their social media strategy. Their efforts have resulted in record admission yields and recently earned NMH the CASE Silver medal for Best Use of Social Media in Communications and Marketing.

We’re thrilled that Jesse will be able to share his expertise and guidance to the broader independent school community through edSocialMedia. Make no mistake, this is a coup for ESM and represents a great opportunity for schools looking for help with their social media plans.

To learn more, read our official announcement below:

We’re proud to announce the appointment of Jesse Bardo as Director of edSocialMedia. Jesse will begin his tenure at ESM on August 1, 2010.

Jesse currently serves as an Admission Counselor & Communications Coordinator at Northfield Mount Hermon School.

In his role as Director, Jesse will direct ESM’s expanded strategy and consulting services, working directly with schools on creating social media plans.

Jesse has spent his entire life in independent schools. From his time as a faculty child and then student at Phillips Andover to his work fresh out of Wesleyan University at Northfield Mount Hermon school, Jesse has lived and breathed the independent school life.

As leading practitioner of social media in the independent school world, Jesse works with NMH’s communication team to weave facebook, blogging, twitter, Youtube & flickr into NMHBook- a cutting edge social media & communications aggregator site that has greatly enhanced the school’s admission outreach and has contributed to record admission yields.

Just this month, CASE acknowledged Jesse’s work by honoring NMH with the prestigious Silver medal for Best Use of Social Media in Communications and Marketing.

Jesse graduated from Phillips Andover Academy in 2003 and Wesleyan University in 2007. While at Wesleyan, he majored in American Studies where he studied the culture of the American boarding schools. He also played four years on the University’s varsity lacrosse team as well as helped with recruits and admission work.

First some Facebook statistics (Facebook.com):

More than 400 million active users

50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day

Average user has 130 friends

People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook

If these figures tell us anything, it is that there are people you want to reach on Facebook. This is where it all starts. Every school has a funnel for its Admissions and every school wants to make that funnel as wide as possible – Facebook allows you to do just that. With millions of people already on Facebook, using it as a marketing tool allows you to reach the people you want, on their terms. It is an Admissions dream. If the students that you have at your school are too young to be on Facebook, then their parents are on it. (Maybe some useful info – women aged 55 and up are the fastest growing demographic of Facebook users in America- www.Mashable.com).

If you are worried about the open nature of a Facebook page and possibly attracting comments from users that are negative towards your school, remember that you are creating a page for people who believe in what your school is doing. If this does happen, you can always delete the post if you wish. The average person on Facebook is not going to become a fan of your school; they are not invested enough in it… yet. Your presence on Facebook will put them on the right track. For those people that are invested, such as alums, current students, teachers, and parents, this site will be a forum for sharing their positive experiences! When outsiders do visit this page, they are presented with the comments and input from people who are excited about your school.

Fans cheer – all they need is something to cheer about, and you are going to give them that. Here’s an example of how it works; posting a picture or an article from the school newspaper will elicit responses from your school’s fans. For all those who respond, Facebook posts a notice on their profile, as well as on the profiles of their friends. With each response, the net widens, and your school gets a feature in an ever-expanding network of people. This is how a ripple of information you’ve posted on Facebook, turns into a wave of online activity, and widens your school’s funnel.

The best part of Facebook is that it is social and it is raw. Your pictures do not need to be taken by a professional. Simply snap a picture with your iphone and upload it, along with an accompanying story. Are the 5^th graders putting on a play today? Take a 3-minute clip of it on your flip video and put it up to show parents and teachers. Facebook is what is going on right now. As a school, you can give the people who are connected to you instant information about what is going on and their commentary brings your information to everyone else.

For the family that is already considering your school, they come across your Facebook site and what they see is a vivid, organic representation of all the activity going on at your school. Attached to all the cool things your school has to offer, they see the comments of parents, kids, teachers, and alumni, who continue to support the school. That is the best viewbook you can put out there and it is available for all to see.

Create a ripple and cause a wave. Facebook is worth the investment. For some ideas, check out the NMH Facebook page through www.nmhschool.org/nmhbook. It took two years to get to this point but I hope you will be able to see how successful it can be for your institution.