Need advice setting up twitter for a primary school

[mikkydoos]

Hi all,

 

I need a bit of advice on setting up Twitter for a primary school.

 

 

They're nervous about people posting unsuitable replies to any of their tweets and who can/should be following them and re-tweeting etc...... Ideally for it to work as a one way news feed with no view-able replies.

 

The school is in a very deprived area and this type of behavior is expected unfortunately - from pupils and maybe some parents/locals.

 

 

 

How do you manage to lock down Twitter ?

 

Do you approve followers? - If so how do you know who they are when you get a request?

 

Anyone willing to post a pic of their Twitter privacy settings ?

 

 

 

Big cheers in advance ; )

Edited November 1, 2017 by mikkydoos

[simonw]

I've been asked about Twitter too today, so will be interested in any info/advice Edugeeks can provide

[atcoates]

Recent thread...http://www.edugeek.net/forums/how-do-you-do/189118-school-twitter-dos-donts.html

[mikkydoos]

Recent thread...http://www.edugeek.net/forums/how-do-you-do/189118-school-twitter-dos-donts.html

 

Cheers @atcoates

 

.... the thread doesn't quite help with locking down.

 

I'd like some opinions of how particularly primaries manage the content.

[CAM]

You only have one real option, locked or unlocked.

 

Locked will hide your profile and make it private. Followers need to be authorized. Anyone who isn't following you cannot share or see your posts, even if you mention them in the reply. If you are planning to distribute information via Twitter like announcements then this is a bad solution as your content is hidden from view and can be leaked anyway with screenshots.

 

Unlocked allows your posts to be visible to the public. Anyone can follow you, anyone can reply and anyone can share. The downside is you cannot control what people do with your content on the site, but since anyone can leak the contents of a locked account anyway that is a moot point.

 

The best solution is to keep it public and don't post anything you wouldn't want the public, students or parents (and crucially OFSTED!) to see. Control access to the account to designated people and deal with any abusive replies using Twitter's report tools. You can speak to any identifiable culprits directly, staying in line with school policies (that need to be updated to handle this new communications medium for your school).

[mikkydoos]

Cheers @CAM

 

There's going to be a deputy head managing it. I just don't want the first thing to happen is that it gets trolled the minute it goes live - they'll just want it taken down straight away.

 

That's likely in this demographic. I wish it could block replies. I'm looking at loads other other schools feeds that are really clean - are they just be deleting/banning any dodgy posts as soon as they see them?

[mikkydoos]

Hhhm... been having a play.

 

Maybe I have the whole concept of Twitter wrong. Am I wrong to assume that if you reply to a tweet it appears below the original message for all to see? Like it does on this on this thread.

 

 

Or if someone replies, does that reply just notify me/appear in my timeline/dashboard for only me to view?

 

 

Not a social media lover personally!

Edited November 1, 2017 by mikkydoos

[JATSO]

We have it in our schools and to see it you have to be a follower.

They generally just use for information pushes such school closures etc quick reminders for parents who follow.

They manage it themselves I just make sure that its linked on the school website and admin and staff are allowed to access.

[j224]

We had this discussion a few years ago and decided that a Facebook 'secret group' was a better solution as more parents used it compared to Twitter. Works great as a news feed and we just tell parents that they can 'like' our posts but not add comments.

[rad]

I manage our (Secondary) school Twitter. It works well and we dont have many issues.

I would say though to get attention to a tweet, add a picture. I have just added onto our website the Mock Timetable for KS4, So I then tweeted is out on the school twitter feed and added a "Keep Calm poster" as it will grab attention, just text doesnt.

[HBPS]

I had a massive argument with our former COG about twitter. I caved in and said it was fine for her to set one up as long as we review in 3 months. 3 months passed she had 1 parent following the feed. in the mean time i created a FB page we are in one of the most deprived areas of Leeds. With the appropriate security settings applied we now have over 200 parents like the page and follow the updates. we are now phasing out the twitter account....

[HBPS]

Using Facebook in School - a complete guide this is the guide i followed i think there is a twitter one too all free

[TwistedHelixis]

Why do you not use your schools website for parental engagement or are you actively trying to make parents not visit it?

[Garacesh]

There's going to be a deputy head managing it. I just don't want the first thing to happen is that it gets trolled the minute it goes live - they'll just want it taken down straight away.

Well I think the answer there is "Well, tough."

 

This is the internet. Whoever's handling the twitter account needs a thick skin and needs to understand how exactly the internet works (socially, not mechanically).

Twitter has some ways to remove offensive content, but if someone decides to take a shot at you, there's not that much you can do if they're not being directly threatening or racist.

 

@SchoolTwitter: The school is closed today due to poor weather. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

@AngryParent: @SchoolTwitter, Apologies don't [effing] help when I'm losing a day's wage 'cause of you, do they?!

 

There's really not a whole lot you can do in that situation, and if your deputy head isn't 'net savvy or thick-skinned, I could see that putting them off using it.

 

If you do go down the Twitter route though, just remember it's considerably less popular than facebook. You can't run a school twitter if it's locked, because many people don't have twitter so won't be able to see your feed. Facebook is the safer bet in the grand scheme of things, because it's more likely that people will connect their communications with their 'real identity' (and be more civil because of this), and it's also more likely that a person has facebook than twitter, so your engagement % will be higher if that's what you're after. If you're not after either, and you just want an announcement platform, I'd say just use your school website.

[GuyJD]

Why do you not use your schools website for parental engagement or are you actively trying to make parents not visit it?

We find that parents don't really visit our website unless it's to look for information like term dates, if we post stuff on our twitter and Facebook linking to the website we get a lot more parents seeing what we want them to see.

 

Our Twitter and Facebook have been running for around 6 months, we're a primary in South east London, we've not really had any issues with replies, replies aren't displayed under your tweet as such you have to click on the little reply bubble icon to see any replies, we see it as the school can't be held responsible for someone elses reply and so far we've had nothing but good replies.

 

With regards to security settings we don't go down the locked unless approved route rather we use it as an extension of our website, if we wouldn't put it on out site then we don't put it on social media.

[mikkydoos]

Why do you not use your schools website for parental engagement or are you actively trying to make parents not visit it?

 

The website requires people to actively visit it.

 

I'm going after the 'Beep in your pocket' method.

[mavhc]

Facebook your choices are either: A page, which facebook want you to pay for to get to all your followers, or a group, where everyone in the group can see everyone else.

 

I added https://onesignal.com to our website, one month later we have about half as many people receiving instant notifications as we have pupils, not bad considering I've never publicised it.

[TwistedHelixis]

Out of interest how does Facebook and twitter fit in with data protection and GDPR. For example if someone is listed on either and they use the right to be removed I assume simply deleting their info would not be enough as it might not really be deleted or am I over complicating things?

[mavhc]

Out of interest how does Facebook and twitter fit in with data protection and GDPR. For example if someone is listed on either and they use the right to be removed I assume simply deleting their info would not be enough as it might not really be deleted or am I over complicating things?

 

Seems like that's Facebook's problem. Listed how?

[Stutwo]

You can easily make a Facebook page that you have control over - but it does need constant attention. You can set it so only authorised users can post content, you can't stop people commenting but you can delete comments and filter profanity. It's far more effective than either Twitter or your website if you keep it active because Facebook is becoming more and more the de facto method of people communicating information. Events needing publicity can easily be "boosted" for a tenner or so - last time we did that it appeared in the news feed of over 12000 people in a week.

 

Twitter has its uses but the inability to lock down replies means we don't use it anywhere near as much, and certainly not on any displays in school.

Edited November 2, 2017 by Stutwo

[mavhc]

You can easily make a Facebook page that you have control over - but it does need constant attention. You can set it so only authorised users can post content, you can't stop people commenting but you can delete comments and filter profanity. It's far more effective than either Twitter or your website if you keep it active because Facebook is becoming more and more the de facto method of people communicating information. Events needing publicity can easily be "boosted" for a tenner or so - last time we did that it appeared in the news feed of over 12000 people in a week.

 

Twitter has its uses but the inability to lock down replies means we don't use it anywhere near as much, and certainly not on any displays in school.

 

But OneSignal means I can send a mobile notification to everyone, even more likely to be seen, for free. Not relying on Facebook, whose job it is to make money off you.

[Stutwo]

But OneSignal means I can send a mobile notification to everyone, even more likely to be seen, for free. Not relying on Facebook, whose job it is to make money off you.

 

As long as you can get parents on board with your own messaging system, then absolutely.

[TwistedHelixis]

All the schools I look after have always used text to communicate with parents, its the only way to almost grantee they see the info, not everyone has facebook or twitter but almost everyone has a phone and for those that don't either an email or they can visit our website

[mavhc]

As long as you can get parents on board with your own messaging system, then absolutely.

 

They go to our website, they get a popup: do you want notifications?, if they say no, they can later click an icon to enable them again. Standard android/chrome notifications.

[mikkydoos]

All the schools I look after have always used text to communicate with parents, its the only way to almost grantee they see the info, not everyone has facebook or twitter but almost everyone has a phone and for those that don't either an email or they can visit our website

 

It gets expensive... hence social media.