Is your school using Twitter?

[Edu-IT]

Just wondering how many schools out there have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon and are using it to communicate with parents etc.

[pete]

Yup, as a "stuff the info out by as many channels as possible" measure.

[Edu-IT]

Have you had a lot of take up on it?

[6Foot2]

We are not using Twitter and have no intention of using it. However we do have a link to Facebook on our website and we may start using RM Startcache [if we buy it] to allow staff to have access to it and sites like YouTube without havig to ask our ISP to make changes.

[pete]

-ish, I haven't really spent a lot of time on pushing it - more of a "set it up, rush off to do another job". Currently working out if I can push our website updates to it tumblr-style rather than reposting manually.

[p858snake]

-ish, I haven't really spent a lot of time on pushing it - more of a "set it up, rush off to do another job". Currently working out if I can push our website updates to it tumblr-style rather than reposting manually.

 

ping.fm can push updates to a number of services and you can send to it via email/im so that might help.

[elsiegee40]

We have just started using twitter in the last couple of days and I'm really surprised by how quickly it's been taken up.

 

Initial publicity just on the "Snow procedure" bit of our website (along with the details of the 3 local radio stations we contact). Info was emailed to all parents this morning along with a reminder of the radio stations and so we're getting more followers by the hour.

 

HT tells me she got severe earache from a couple of parents yesterday who couldn't understand why she wasn't going to get staff to telephone every parent individually should we need to close.

[fiendishlyclever]

-ish, I haven't really spent a lot of time on pushing it - more of a "set it up, rush off to do another job". Currently working out if I can push our website updates to it tumblr-style rather than reposting manually.

 

There are a number of tools that take a RSS feed and post to Twitter.

 

Google Feedburner and Twitterfeed are two I've used.

[p858snake]

Is it actually parents following you or children so they can easily retweet when they notice that they have no school?

[cookie_monster]

We've been using it to report when the school is closed due to snow this week, it's been followed by quite a few people now. As stated above it's just another way of getting the info out as fast as possible.

[elsiegee40]

Is it actually parents following you or children so they can easily retweet when they notice that they have no school?

All parents and staff... we're a primary, so the kids are probably a bit young

[Edu-IT]

Google Feedburner and Twitterfeed are two I've used.

Just moved our feeds over to Feedburner, much more functionality. :-)

[Sylv3r]

We've been using it for about 3 months and only have 27 followers - must students / parents find out about school closures via TXT message and school news via the website or monthly newsletters.

 

St. Bede's School (stbedes_school) on Twitter

[Edu-IT]

Can somebodty test posting from Feedburner to Twitter? It's not working for me and I'm going CRAZY!

[WithoutMotive]

We've had a Twitter account for a while now fed to our website. As well as being informative on the site, people have also started following us for updates. It was especially useful during the snow. I did a small survey after and a lot of people for the information about the closure through Twitter or seeing our feed on the site so it's proved it's use.

[ranj]

Like the previous poster. We have found its another source of information such as snow days and parents evenings.

[Scottyboy99]

Yep and incorporating it into our new website.

[Sylv3r]

After a recent news item from our LA - we have since removed our twitter and facebook pages. I agree Facebook and Twitter were two great forms of communication with students and parents - but we have now been left with little choice.

 

Use of Social Networking Sites

 

As you might be aware, the County Council does not currently have a policy on the use of Social Networking Sites although we understand that this is currently under consideration.

 

However, pending the introduction of a County Council policy, everybody should be very clear that Children and Young People's Services does not support the use of social networking sites as a suitable means of contact with children and *young people due to the necessity to adhere to certain professional standards for some groups of staff and, importantly, some very significant safeguarding concerns.* This is in line with guidance and recent comments from CEOP, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre - more guidance and information can be found on the [ Thinkuknow for Parents: FAQs - Social Networking ] CEOP site.

 

Managers are requested to ensure that the use of *sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., for* the *distribution of information or for personal contact with children and young people is not permitted and any failure to comply with this instruction could result in investigation and possibly disciplinary action.

[Primus]

Well that's BS, typical knee-jerk response and as for CEOP, they're dangerous - a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, they're little more than a big megaphone for their CEO Jim Gamble.