Category Archives: Managing School Operations and Resources

3 Important Trends That We Should Focus On in Schools

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cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Esparta

In our world, parents and students now have access to the same information that educators do, and the hope is that this would improve the learning that happens in school.  The reality of this is though, that educators have access to information outside of schools and we should be looking towards different organizations and industries, and what they are focusing on and improving their practice.  Many educators are doing this now, and you will see things like Google’s “2o% Time” implemented at both the classroom and organizational level with great success.  As educators, I really believe we need to look both inside and outside of schools to create the best opportunities for our students.

Here are a few focus areas outside of education, that we should be looking at in schools and make more explicit in our practice.

1.  Research and Development

Having a conversation at a recent meeting, the presenter continuously talked about “R & D”, while many sat in the room curious to what the initials stood for.  Why is that?  Why do we put such little emphasis on “Research and Development” in schools, while others organizations put a much larger emphasis in this area:

“Anthony S. Bryk, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, has estimated that other fields spend 5 percent to 15 percent of their budgets on research and development, while in education, it is around 0.25 percent. Education-school researchers publish for fellow academics; teachers develop practical knowledge but do not evaluate or share it; commercial curriculum designers make what districts and states will buy, with little regard for quality. We most likely will need the creation of new institutions — an educational equivalent of the National Institutes of Health, the main funder of biomedical research in America — if we are to make serious headway.”  (From “Teachers: Will We Ever Learn“)

Obviously, research is a component of what we do in our classrooms, but are we creating from that process or are we simply reporting?  Teachers should be continuous learners and active research should be a component of this (obviously administrators should be finding time to ensure that this happens), and we are more likely to create this experience for students if we experience this ourselves.  Actively researching best, new and innovative practices, would only improve our schools.

We spend a lot of time having our students look back at the past, but how much time do we give them to create the future?

2.  Entrepreneurial Spirt

The term “entrepreneurial spirit” is something that has been a focus for Alberta Education:

“Entrepreneurial Spirit: who creates opportunities and achieves  goals through hard work, perseverance and discipline; who  strives for excellence and earns success; who explores ideas and challenges the status quo; who is competitive, adaptable and resilient; and who has the confidence to take risks and make bold decisions in the face of adversity.”

Or their simple definition for students:

“I create new opportunities.”

I have seen many amazing things that have been created in schools only because I happened to be in the school.  If students are able to develop an “app”, should they not also have some understanding of how to market it as well?  This just not go for the “business minds” in school, but in any and every aspect.  A student can be the most amazing artist, but if no one ever sees their work, could they ever end up doing this for a living?  I am a firm believer that we should try to give opportunities for students to follow their passions and hopefully make a living from what they love.

Dan Pink shares his belief that all people are in some capacity need the ability to be able to “sell”:

“Physicians sell patients on a remedy. Lawyers sell juries on a verdict. Teachers sell students on the value of paying attention in class. Entrepreneurs woo funders, writers sweet-talk producers, coaches cajole players.”

If you think back to your own post-secondary experience in becoming an educator, were you ever actually taught on how to get a job?  This is more important than ever with “digital footprints” becoming a large factor in how people in all areas are getting jobs.

We want our students to be able to create amazing things; how do we help them share those creations?

(Check out SCH Academy’s “Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership” to see a very innovative program that is really trying to push the envelope in this areas.)

3.  Leadership Development

This is probably a no-brainer for many, but still something that schools need to focus on for their entire community.  When I talk about “leadership”, I am not thinking of “being the boss”, but the ability to empower others and be a part in creating a positive culture.  I also believe that leadership has to do with ownership, and things that we do in isolation also help us in this pursuit (Sir Ken Robinson is considered a “leader” in education but how many of you know of any affiliations that he has with any single organization?).

Developing leaders should be something that we continue to focus on, or the first two areas that I have discussed will end up being moot.

Although there are “electives” in schools in the above areas, should there not be elements of each in the work that we do everyday?  As stated before, this is not just about students, but for it to be successful, these are initiatives that should be available to educators as well.  Experience is the best way to create new learning, and if our staff does not understand this, how will our students?  We should also look at what we do already in these areas and make some of these initiatives more explicit to our public.  Changing the terminology from “staff days” to “Research and Development Day” (or whatever the time length), better communicates the work that we are trying to do, and perhaps creates a better focus for ourselves on what we are trying to do with our professional learning time.

Although a lot of these terms are related to “business”, I see them as valuable opportunities for learning and to create opportunities for our students, not only in their future, but also their present.

I look forward to your thoughts.

4 Guiding Questions For Your IT Department

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cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Maurizio Zanetti

Recently, I tweeted an article entitle, “The Obsolete Tech Director“, which had some ideas on how to ensure that an IT department stays relevant in the way they serve schools.  With that being said, there was a really strong message being sent regarding IT departments and how many are seeing their work by the author:

“The role of the typical school district technology director has become obsolete.  Speak with your average teacher in many school districts in America, and you’ll find the technology department is better known for getting in the way than for serving the educational needs of both staff and students.  Many technology departments, led by obsolete tech directors, are inadvertently inhibiting learning.  The mantra of ‘lock it and block it’ no longer works in a 21st century digital learning environment.”

The author of the article is a technology director so I feel more comfortable where the message is coming from, yet my concern would be simply shooting the link off in an email to an IT department without any type of discussion.  Having worked with both teachers and an IT department, it is important that we have conversations to work together and understand how we can work together to serve our schools.  Daniel Pink sums it up nicely in his new book:

“Perspective-taking is at the heart of our first essential quality in moving others today.”

So to create a culture where we are supportive and serving of one another, I really believe that it starts by asking questions as opposed to simply making statements.  Here are some ideas of questions that can start the conversation:

 1. What is best for kids? – This is a question that should not just be asked of our IT departments but should be the question that guides all of our work.  For example, the mindset about blocking many social media sites is that we keep the kids safe from doing this work, but in the long term, what seems to be best for kids is to educate them to navigate a really confusing and fast-paced world, as opposed to leaving them to do this at home.  If you decide to open these sites, we have to ask what work is happening in the classrooms to ensure that students have an understanding of digital citizenship and their footprint.    It is easy to say, “open the site”, but it is more important that if sites are open, that we work with kids to ensure that they are safe online.  This question helps us to understand what we can do to help each other.

 2. How does this improve learning? In the past, I have seen software programs that have been pushed out that have a business focus and then pushed as a great thing for schools.  Companies can get very pushy with software and it makes good business sense to take a software and show how it can have multiple purposes.  At any point though, if either educators or the IT department cannot articulate how any new program or software will improve student learning, why is it being pushed to all computers?  IT departments should be able to ask this of educators as well.  If a teacher just went to a conference and saw some cool software that they now think should be pushed to all computers, they should be able to articulate why it is essential for learing to their IT department.  I believe that there is an opportunity to test some programs out in small cases, but when you think it is something that all students should have, we will need to articulate how it serves learning.  If neither side can answer this question, we are wasting time and resources.

(See “Our Digital Portfolio Project” to see how it was articulated that we would be using WordPress for student portfolios and how it would give opportunities for learning.  This was needed before we even went ahead with the project.)

3. If we were to do _________, what is the balance of risk vs. reward? Many IT departments look at risk assessment and they want the risk to be either low or preferably zero. But with that being said, how often do we look at the possible reward that is associated with doing something?  For example, many schools block Twitter for all in a school as there seemingly is a risk of opening social media sites, but when you open up sites and you say to your community,
“we trust you”, there is a HUGE reward that can come out of this.  If you also looked at the learning opportunities for opening up sites like YouTube, we have to look at not only the learning opportunities that are available with the second most used search engine, but also what we may lose.  In my opinion there is a much higher reward with opening the site if you are to work with your students, but we should have to articulate what that reward could be instead of just saying, “Why isn’t YouTube open?”

4. Is this serving the few or the majority? This question is something that is essential when we make any policies on anything, but for some reason, we seem to go overboard when it comes to technology.  If a kid stabs someone with a pencil, they might be writing with it by the end of the school day, yet if we have a cyberbullying issue with one student, some schools block social media altogether.  It seems like quite the overreaction.

So anytime a new policy or procedure happens for an entire school, we have to ensure that we are not punishing everyone for the mistakes of a few.  Innovative environments should be built on trust, not the lack of it.

(This is a great video talking about this exact idea and it is a great view for all staff.)

Empathy is something that is essential to the work that we do, and I realized when I went to central office is that there is a ton of work that our IT Departments do that I do not have the ability or skill set to do.  They do amazing work.  What I would suggest though is that you invite your IT team to observe in your classroom (not necessarily help) what you do on an everyday basis.  If your Internet is slow, computers do not work, and students are having trouble logging into things, they want to know that but it is important that they see this, not just hear about it after the fact.  On the other hand, invite IT teams to conferences on education (not only educational technology) and have conversations on how to get to the next level for student learning.

The success of the school is more likely to happen if your IT team and educators are working together, not apart.  What are you doing to facilitate this?

BYOD: A Bare Minimum

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cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by Beige Alert

This is a true story.

I wish it wasn’t , but it is.

A good friend of mine, who is a brilliant mind in education, sits down with me at a table during a conference keynote with his superintendents joining.  As we are promoted to have a conversation about initiatives that are happening in our separate school districts, the notion of “BYOD” (Bring Your Own Device) comes up.  As I talk with his direct report, she lets me know that wireless is enabled in all of their schools but staff are not able to bring in their own devices to use because they (the staff) are “not there yet”.

Huh?

My friend turned red and you can see the embarrassment in his face.  He knew exactly what I would think and he was powerless.

This was not a matter of “things not working” but simply not allowing staff to bring in their devices.  I wondered, “do they need professional development on how to use their own devices?”

Really?

This wasn’t even about working with staff to help them determine what students could now do with their own devices, and preparing staff to lead in their classrooms, it was about not letting the adults that they have hired to care for their kids to use their own devices.

Why even have wireless in the buildings if no one is able to use it?

My recollection of this was sparked by reading another article talking about BYOD and how powerful it can be.  Not about the learning that happens because of BYOD in a school, but just that kids can now bring their devices to schools and use them.

So what?  What has this really transformed in teaching and learning?

I am not arguing that BYOD shouldn’t be implemented in our schools, because it absolutely should.  But it should be the minimum standard of what is done in our schools.  As a good friend and colleague of mine says, it is the “low hanging fruit”.  If it doesn’t exist in your school(s), and you are making it happen, that is great.  That being said, it absolutely needs to go much further than the idea that we can bring our devices into schools.  It should be about what are we doing with them that improves learning?

We shouldn’t be too excited about an infrastructure that already exists at McDonalds and Starbucks should we?

Your School Year in Numbers

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Dean Shareski recently shared a post where he has a compelling video that talks about his “year in numbers” (inspired by this Dan Meyer post), where he has compiled some information about 2012. (I made the video!)

Many schools say that too many people focus on “test scores”, yet how often do we share (in engaging ways), the stats that are really important to many of our community.  Wouldn’t a video like this for a school year, or broken up into semesters and terms, share some REALLY important stats that many miss out on that goes beyond showing our kids as “test scores”?

For example, how much has your school raised to serve others?  How many hours of coaching and practice have happened?  How many hour have been spent doing musicals or plays (in Canada, these are most often voluntary hours)? What is your school doing to lead in your community?

The thing that I want to be careful of though is that schools aren’t necessarily sharing stats like, “How many books we have read?” and then forcing kids to read for “numbers” as opposed to interest.  But with that being said, wouldn’t this be a cool project for schools to take on?  I know that many schools share a lot of evidence through a large document, but I think that there is a certain appeal to creating a video.

This is something that shares YOUR story and doesn’t allow for the narrative of your school to be told by others or be determined only by test scores.

What do you think?  What questions or data could you compile that would show what your school does that people need to know about?  Any schools out there interested in doing something like this or have already?

 

6 Leadership Lessons From Australia

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Spending the last two weeks in Australia, I have seen a lot of different schools, teachers, students, and cultures, and it was when Stephen Gwilliam actually asked me over lunch about my learning, did I really think about what i picked up from my experience presenting and facilitating workshops.

Below are some thoughts that I have from my experience that I believe are important considerations for myself as I further my own leadership.

1. People matter, but “stuff” sometimes matters to those people.  Make sure that stuff works.

Being in Australia for the third time in the last 12 months, I feel the pain of many teachers that have to go through “proxy” settings to get some type of filtered Internet.  It rarely, if ever works for teachers, and there is often frustration and a subversive culture often being created.  It is also often a killer of innovation.

Coming from a very open environment, one of the teachers that was extremely forward thinking was actually surprised by what we are able to do in our own school division.  The comment she had made was, “we had no idea of the thing that were even possible until you showed us things that we are not able to have access to.  We never try a lot of the things that you show because we are so used to an environment where things don’t work.”

I am hoping that the South Australia department is listening to this message. If they are, I am sure that many other systems would be more than willing to open their schools and classrooms to show you the possibilities of an “open” Internet.  Yes we still have filters (pornography and gambling) but you need to start looking at what kids access on their phone and preparing them for the world they live in.

(I highly suggest this Dan Haesler article on driving and social media. Are we doing our job?)

2. Get the right people on the “bus”, but make sure that you know where the bus is going.

The “bus” analogy is one that is often used in leadership circles and I have loved the analogy, but where is it going?  I know that many organizations put a lot of time into creating mission and vision statements, but how often do we ask questions such as, “What is the purpose of school?” or, “What does that mission statement look like in the context of schools?”, and get some answers.

If leaders cannot define those things, then a mission statement is just fancy words on a piece of paper.  People want to do good but they are often unclear of what “good” could look like or, worse, they are not included in the conversation at all.  It is time to take those mission statements and think of what they look like for kids and teachers.

I believe that there are not only one answer for these questions, but I also see many teachers thinking that having kids sit quietly in rows by themselves is good teaching because they have not been told anything else.  As a teacher myself, I would teach way better when I wasn’t being evaluated because it was more focused on “learning”, yet when my principal would come in, I would focus more on “teaching”.  It was not until I had heard what my principal (specifically) was looking for, did I feel that I was able to really push the former.

Do we have a vision, and if we do, is it clear to others?

3.  Kids and adults should be learning in the same room more.  Way more.

One of my presentations, meant for high school students actually had more adults in the room.  I had decided to change what I was doing on the fly and make it something applicable to both and the conversation that had come out of the afternoon was amazing.  I was abe to facilitate conversations where students said things such as, “We should be allowed to bring in devices to the classroom”, where I agreed but the asked them, “How will  you use it for learning if this happens?”  Simply allowing kids to bring devices into classroom will not get your school to the transformative level, but both students and teachers should think of ways they can use this technology in meaningful ways.

What came out of this day was seemingly more accountability on both parts.  Having someone talk about the possibilities for moving classrooms ahead, and the roles that we all play, put ownership on all parties to move forward, including the students. It also allowed students to share what they want to do in their classrooms and how it can change with someone facilitating the conversation and also helping staff know how to get there.

Let’s face it, if a teacher is not comfortable with mobile devices in the classroom and one day allows students to use them without taking a hard look at their own pedagogy, do you think kids would just immediately stop texting?  I know I wouldn’t.  These conversations should happen together WAY more often.

This was my first time doing this type of conversation and it seemed to be very successful with a lot of possible upsides.

4. Use your voice.

I have stated this before to many people that I have connected with.

“Don’t complain about something you don’t have if you have never asked for it.”

Teachers need to come together and keep asking questions and focus conversations on, “What is best for kids.”  Many that I encountered felt that there voice was not valued yet also did not often speak to the right people.  Your voice is important but if you are in a culture where you find out it isn’t, maybe it is time to move on.  As the Edcamp motto goes, “People will talk with their feet.”

Ask questions and share what you want to do what is best for kids.  Focus all conversations on that point, but, start the conversation.

5.  “Connecting” is a HUGE part of leadership and we need to recognize this.

When I was a kid growing up, the principal seemed to be the person with all the answers.  Now (and probably back then), this is impossible because there are far too many questions.  A school administrator should be a facilitator of leadership and that means sometimes deferring to others and helping to not only build leadership capacity, but also relationships in the building.  It does not make sense to be the “last stop” for information, but also a conduit to others.  A leader creates other leaders not more followers.  Connecting people to those leaders is an essential.

Malcolm Gladwell refers to “connectors” in his book The Tipping Point and  that they have a unique knack, “to span many different worlds is a function of something intrinsic to their personality, some combination of curiosity, self-confidence, sociability, and energy.”  If we are at a “tipping point” in education, will those who are “connectors” become vital to the success of schools?

To become a connector, it is important to know that this takes a decrease in  “ego” but an increase in confidence.  To be able to say “someone is better at this than I am” is essential for a leader.  Strong leaders get this and are comfortable with it.

6. Resilience

To my many Australian friends who are moving towards innovative schools and classrooms and dealing with things that they see as roadblocks, don’t give up.  Nothing worth doing is easy and I know that many great schools did not happen overnight.  There is a lot of work to be done, but technology issues, resources, and changed mindsets can happen over time with patience and hard work.  That being said, I believe that “change” does not need to take as long to happen and stick in a school anymore.  With the effective use of technology to share amazing things happening in the classroom through social media, great practice that happens in isolated classrooms does not take as long to be visible to others.  Instead of waiting to share something once a month at a professional development day does not have to happen anymore.  You can share it as it happens or at least soon after through the effective use of social media.  It is essential to do that.

You want to think how quickly things can move in our world right now?  Do you know any Korean singers?  Exactly.  Things can happen faster now in our world and Stephen Johnson refers to this connection being essential to innovation:

“Figure out a way to create systems that allow those hunches to come together.”

Thank you to all the new acquaintances and old friends from Australia that made for a great learning experience!  I hope to see you all again soon :)

 

Let’s Figure This Out

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cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Sean MacEntee

“We spend far too much time talking about problems, and not enough time talking about solutions.” Simon Jackson

I watched as Bruce Dixon spoke to a group of leaders. To be honest, I had only kind of heard of him before though his name has popped up in blogs, twitter, etc.  As he was introduced, one of the statements about him was, “he has been pushing for 21st century learning for 23 years”, and I kind of laughed it off.

And then he spoke and I was blown away.  To be honest, he really pushed my own thinking as well on what I do in my role.

He talked about the “elephants in the room” and one was the lack of access for students with technology and the pressure of time that we have, yet only providing kids time on a computer for an hour a week.  He spoke passionately about the ubiquitous access that students need to a tool that is necessary in our world today.  If you look around at most conferences, every teacher has some device that they use, whether it is a computer, tablet, or smartphone.  Go into the classroom though, and you will be lucky if you see that as the norm.

1:1 schools get so much attention because they are so unique, but should they be?  Shouldn’t that be the norm for our kids as it is outside of our world?  If you really think of it, doesn’t it seem strange that we are nowhere near the point where every kid having a device in school is just the norm?

Why?

Some will blame budgets. Some will blame admin. Some will blame governments. Some will blame lack of teacher skills.  Lots of blame to go around yet very little problem solving.  We are teachers; solving problems is part of what we do.  Why are we not pushing to figure this one out a little harder?

So I am looking around the room while Mr. Dixon is speaking and I see one of the things that I always notice when someone says this; the “head bob”. Watching people “bob” their head up and down with everything that he was saying just like I have seen many times from similar conversations. The notion of giving our kids access is something we all agree on, yet what have we figured out?  As I look around this room full of superintendents, board trustees, educators, parents, and business people, I wonder if we REALLY started pushing the issue, could we not make a bigger dent?

Moving your head up and down does not equal action.  If you aren’t going to try and figure a way to do this and push the issue, moving your head up and down is not for you; choose side-to-side. Be honest.

What you say (and show) should align with what you do.

This can be done and I have worked before to make it happen as a school principal (to at least some extent).  Figure out what you want to do, then align your budget to make things happen.  Don’t say “21st Century Learning blah blah blah”, then increase or even maintain your same textbook budget.  That doesn’t make sense.   When those “desks” break, don’t buy more desks. Another thing that makes no sense.  Don’t ever put less money in people (the school can look flashy but if you do not provide the professional development, any initiative will die), but think of the “things” you buy.  Leadership should determine your management, not the other way around.

So my first move?  I guess it is this post that might make some people feel uncomfortable.  But that’s not enough.  I will continue to work with my schools to help find ways to make this a reality.

What’s your move?

Any politicians reading this?  Your agendas and plans often look great, but for now they are words in print and nothing else.  Want to make them happen?  Provides resources and support.  Some governments have provided funding for devices for students…it is possible.

Any businesses reading this?  If you want kids to have the skills that  YOU continuously say you need in your workplace, start to invest in schools. Don’t just sponsor sporting events so you can get your name on a banner.  That money you spend on advertising within schools might get you some business short term, but will it promote the creativity and innovation of your organization long term?  You will get a huge rate of return if you start putting money in schools to provide kids with what they need.

Administrators reading this?  Figure this out.  Take a look at your budgets and dissect them.  What can be different?  What is your focus for learning? If technology is not in your plan, why?  Explain that to me.  Feel free to write it in the comments.  I don’t get how it can’t be anymore. but maybe I am missing something

Teachers reading this?  Share your voice.  Not just on Twitter and blogs but go talk to the people that determine budgets.  Look at “government plans” which all talk about the learning our kids need, 21st century learning, etc.,  and ask them how will they fund this.  Will politicians listen?  Maybe not.  But you have a better shot this way as opposed to saying nothing.

Parents reading this?  Start talking with your schools and ask questions. Lots of them. Be a part of the school team to help improve the opportunities for your kids.  We always say, “it takes a village” and we need parents more than ever in our schools.

I just can’t handle the head bobbing anymore without the action behind it.  Let’s figure this out for our kids.

Management and Leadership

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cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by digitpedia

I heard an administrator say this the other day regarding the use of  Twitter:

“When would I have time to go on there?  I have 150 emails a day that I need to take care of!  When would I possibly have time to tweet?”

I thought about this statement. A lot.

The thing is, you don’t have to tweet but you do have to keep up with your email, just like you have to keep up with paperwork.  Those are all details that have so much to do with management, and very little with leadership.

Now using Twitter to improve your professional learning is different.  I don’t have to do it but I do know that if I want to be a leader and help find the best ideas for my school/division so I can help them grow, I will make it a priority.  The reality is that extra work that you put in to better your school has so much to do with leadership, and very little to do with management.

There is some element of management that is needed in schools in every position including that of teacher, and sometimes even student.  I am not going to say that management is not important.  Imagine a world class chef owning a restaurant but never paying the bills?  The place would get shut down.

But leadership is so much more than keeping up with your emails.

I remember talking to an aspiring administrator about the job of principal and telling him that the job is as challenging as you want to be.  If he wanted to do great things, it was going to take more time.  But if he wanted to just “maintain”, the work load is much less.

With all that being said, I don’t want to say that the administrator is not a leader.  I only heard that one statement.  But when we discredit what we don’t know, we can often look foolish.

Whatever you are wanting to do to move your school forward, the time is there.  It really never is about time, but in actuality, it is about priority.

 

Branding the Learning Organization

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At the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year, I presented some information to our board of trustees and discussed the importance of “digital footprint”.  I was not just speaking about this from the viewpoint of individuals, but also from the idea of schools and organizations building upon their digital footprint.  Needless to say, as organization, there was not much out there about our schools and we wanted to focus on building our presence as a “learning organization”.

I have seen many administrators talk about the idea of “branding”, and I understand that in many places this is important when schools may be competing for students more so than we are in our own school division.  Our focus was not the idea of “branding” necessarily, but the idea of learning, connecting and showing our work in continuously growing as a learning organization.  You may have a principal or a teacher that has a large enough Twitter following that when you do a search for the organization, one of the top results is not necessarily the school, but the person with the enormous web presence.  To me, schools are not about one specific individual, but are about our kids and all of our learners.

With that being said, one focus for us was to share the stories of our school division and schools within Parkland and what they are learning through our 184 Days of Learning Project.  As I was very purposeful in tagging each post with the school name, it was interesting to do a google search of one of the schools (Muir Lake School):

When looking up the term “Muir Lake School”, the top post shared was the school website, but it was also interesting to see that the blog and twitter account were now also visible as well.  It was not only those sites, but it was also posts from the 184 blog that stood out as well.  Posts from both teachers and students were showing up in the results and I could not think of a better way to develop the digital footprint of a school; through the voice of students and teachers.

Isn’t this the type of “branding” we want?  Organizations spend millions of dollars on their web presence, where our division focused on using open source software this year  and web 2.0 sites such as Twitter and Facebook that had a minimal cost to get our community to tell the stories and share the learning of our schools.

The best advocates for schools is always the students.  Giving them opportunities to help create your digital identity is a no brainer.

Organizing School/Division Hashtags (Part 1)

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I am currently working on a document that can help Parkland School Division share learning across the division through the effective use of hashtags.  Parkland School Division has approximately 10,000 students, therefore it is important that we continue to figure out how to best share information through social media in an organized manner.

I am hoping that along with the information below, people will share any suggestions that will help our school division use this social media site in an effective way so we can connect and learn together.  Please feel free to use any of the information below with your own schools/organizations.

If you are interested in creating a Twitter account for your school, this article I recently wrote can give you of some ideas on how you can use this tool to build a stronger learning community.  I would suggest looking at the “Tweeting for Schools” post.

As this is a comprehensive document, I am going to share it in two parts along with the final Google Document when it is completed.  I encourage you to share your thoughts and suggestions on anything that I have shared.  These are meant to be guidelines and suggestions within our own school division.

Preamble

As Parkland School Division continues to build its social media presence to connect and learn with stakeholders, we wanted to give some suggestions on how to effectively use Twitter hashtags to connect and share our learning within our organization, as well as within schools.  If you have an effective plan in the building, it can alleviate a lot of confusion later on as you try to change procedures in an attempt to be more effective.  Here are some ideas that will help bring our learning together.

School/School Division Tweets

Whenever there is a tweet from a school Twitter account, it would be beneficial if it would use not only the hashtag for the school to help develop a presence within its own school community, but it would also be helpful to share the information with Parkland School Division so we can also learn alongside the school, as well as share some of the amazing things that are happening in schools with others in our learning community, as well as globally.  Here is an example of a tweet from a school account.  I will use Muir Lake School as an example:

Example tweets from @MuirLake:

Thank you to all of the parents that have helped #MuirLake school this year.  Glad you could come to the volunteer tea!  #psd70

Or to share learning with your school community and all of Parkland School Division:

Great article regarding the #criticalthinking project: My Favorite Liar http://bit.ly/KIu3ls #muirlake #psd70

In the last tweet, you can see the use of 3 hashtags: #criticalthinkingproject, #muirlake, and #psd70.  This enables you to share with anyone watching or searching for information under each hashtag which is beneficial to so many people.  Sending the same link out simply in an email will never reach the audience that a tweet can.  Not only can this be sent out from the @MuirLake account, but it is probable that this will be retweeted by others, including the @psd_70 twitter account.  See the example below:

Tweet from @psd_70:

RT @muirlake Great article regarding the #criticalthinking project: My Favorite Liar http://bit.ly/KIu3ls #muirlake #psd70

Although the @MuirLake account is fairly new and has fewer followers, through retweeting and sharing information, it is more likely to get the information out while creating a larger network.

Of course, tweets are always subject to the number of characters that are being used, so if it is not possible to use the school and division hashtag, that is totally acceptable.  It is however usually  beneficial to try to keep tweets as short as possible.  They are more likely to get retweeted if they have 120 characters or less which gives them room for people to retweet with their twitter user handle contained in the tweet.

Thoughts and Considerations

As there are many initiatives within Parkland School Division,  we want to be thoughtful in how we can share information with both a large audience, as well as others looking for specific information.

For example, if you wanted to have something that is specific to administrators within the school division, you can simply add to the existing hashtag.  #psd70 which could become #psd70_lead.  The nice thing about this is that if you use a service such as Tweetdeck, you will see any hashtags that start with the #psd70 or you can choose to specifically follow #psd70_lead.  Sending an email to only administrators in the school division would ensure that we could get information out to all of them, but we believe in building capacity and if we share information to other staff in our division that are interested in leadership, they can specifically follow the hashtag #psd70_lead as well.  The more we can share, the better we are.  With that being said, we want to be thoughtful in the process so that information is easy to find within our own organization.

Here is an example of a tweet:

Social Media For Administrators (Blog Posts) #psd70_lead #cpchat http://t.co/DopFaHF0

This can be done with other initiatives as well, again by adding to the current #psd70 hashtag.  Our ‘Critical Thinking’ project hashtag could become #psd70_ct, which makes it easy for all those following the #psd70 hashtag to see the information shared on Critical Thinking, as well as the participants can use other ‘general’ hashtags on the topic to ensure a larger audience sees the information as well.  The #CriticalThinking hashtag is one that is highly used and those within our school division would benefit not only from following this hahstag, but sharing to it as well.

Here is another example of a tweet:

Great post for #criticalthinking project. My Favorite Liar | Zen Moments http://t.co/7wlYA3s6 #psd70_ct


As many hashtags can be created through this process, it is important that you have a document that is easily shared and findable to your school division as well as the general public.  This can be shared on any school division websites, or more specifically, as a link on your school division Twitter account.

In the next post, I will be sharing the process of developing hashtags for a school to easily organize across classrooms.  I will share by the end of the week.  I will also be sharing the entire Google Document where the entire article is written.