"If you build it, they will come." Kevin Costner was whispered those powerful words in the movie Field of Dreams, and it changed his character's life. You built a Facebook page, did your audience naturally come find it? How many followers do you have? How many Likes? Do people comment?
It takes effort and promotion to grow your audience, and it's worth the time and energy to invest in that growth. Implement some of the strategies below and continue to grow your audience so that more and more people are impacted by the good news you are sharing. 1. Invite your friends- Open your Facebook page. Under the Sharing button, is an option to invite friends from your profile account to like your page. Which of your friends is interested in your work? Invite other teacher friends to Like your page. 2. Request a Share- Ask your friends to Share your page with their friends on their Facebook timeline. You could even provide them with a short sample post to include when they share your page with their friends. 3. Add your page to your email signature- Be creative, add a Facebook logo and a tagline. "Like our classroom page on Facebook" or "Get a closer look at our classroom on Facebook" 4. Pay attention to your Insights - When is the best time to post? That depends on your audience. Post at different times and track your insights. When is your audience most engaged? Once you know more about your audience's viewing/posting/liking habits, you'll gain more traction by posting during those optimal times. 5. Post Regularly - remember last quarter when we set a goal, a posting theme, and a schedule? Is that goal still relevant? Does it need to be tweaked? 6. Respond to comments and messages - Facebook is a social platform, respond to every comment positively. This is a great opportunity to model digital citizenship in a meaningful way. 7. Ask your followers questions - Their responses are public and it gets your page more potential views. What's their favorite childhood book and why? Who is their real life superhero? Connect a question from your classroom content. Get the students involved with forming the questions. 8. Include a school hashtag- If your school posts to a hashtag, be sure to include it in your posts. 9. Ask other pages to share your page - If your school or PTA has a Facebook page, ask them to share your page with their audience. Provide them with a sample post that encourages their followers to Like your page. 10. Word of mouth - Yes. It's still a powerful form of communication, and it works! Most importantly - don't give up! Promote, post, analyze insights, repeat! Provide transparent content to your audience. Be real. Be consistent. Be a digital role model for your students and the community. Social Media in EDU Challenge (TKES 10) 1. Set a goal to increase your followers by __% by the end of the quarter. 2. Grow your audience! Use some of the strategies above or create your own. 3. Share your experience in the comments below. Include the strategies you tried, your audience growth, and your next steps.
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Many teachers in my district have some sort of IWB technology in their classrooms. Typically, the brands schools have purchased fall into four categories.
iPevo IWB Level up ChallengesActive Slate/Board Level up ChallengesLevel One- Setup and Device Registration Using the Pen to Remote Control the Workstation Using the Mouse with Interactive Lessons and Activities Mimio Teach IWB Level Up Challenge My co-workers, Dru Piersol and Yolanda Sanders created Mimio Challenges. If your Mimio is still in the box, start with Dru's Challenges to get unpacked, setup, and running. If you have a Mimio in your classroom and you want to learn a bit more about its features, start with Yolanda's challenges. Leave a comment! What's your favorite feature of IWB devices for instruction?How do teachers provide students with regular opportunity to write and compose at the keyboard when there are just a few student computers in the classroom? Vickie O’Donnell at East Broad Street K-8 school had a fabulous idea and we put it to the test. Why Create a Writing Kiosk?Ms. O'Donnell had a list of needs for her students...
You'd like to use social media with your students, but need a few ideas to get started? Look no further! Try one of these each day, or stick to one idea and repeat the post with different content regularly to create a social media theme. If you work in SCCPSS, be sure to follow the posting guidelines for your district. 1. Answer the famous question; "WHAT DID YOU LEARN IN SCHOOL TODAY?" Invite your class to design a post each day to tell the community about the learning and projects taking place in your classroom. 2. Interview a teacher/principal/student.... Be sure to have media releases for all students prior to posting. Then share a few interview questions and responses to "Meet So and So." 3. Introduce a piece of literature What are your students reading? How does it impact their instruction? Maybe an audience member could share their thoughts on the reading selection? 4. Share something popular...How can your class participate in a new trend? Perhaps a #MannequinChallenge could be attempted at bus dismissal? 5. Share photos from a field trip... Everyone enjoys seeing students learn real life applications to their studies. Include a few pics and commentary of the valuable learning experience. Be sure to only share photos of students with media releases. 6. Share someone else's content.... Have you seen an article recently that bears relevance for your audience? Share it! Be sure to credit your source. 7. Host an online gallary by posting an awesome piece of student... artwork, poem, story, project, photo, narration, dance, song, instrumental, whatever! 8. Share your latest email newsletter or announcement. Do we really need all that paper? Save yourself the time of standing by the copy machine and post the information where your audience is sure to find it! 9. Celebrate a milestone or little known holiday... We've read ____ books. We've gone ______ days without losing a homework assignment. We donated ______ blankets to the Humane Society. etc.... 10. Give Thanks! Has someone volunteered in your classroom, or provided snacks, or supplies? Take a quick photo and thank them for their generosity. 11. Share something seasonal... Are your students working on a garden project? Cleaning up debris from a hurricane? Collecting canned goods? 12. Show off your expertise... Post a regular "Did you know?" where your audience can learn/benefit from your instructional content. These could serve as conversation starters for parents and students. 13. Who said it? Share a Famous Quote... Who are your students studying? Or, who is quotable in current events? What are people saying and how is their message impacting students? Please share your ideas by adding them to the comments below!
Happy New Year!
So many articles and social media posts are focused on goal setting, habit forming, and general personal overhaul this week. I'm joining in the barrage of posts, but to ask you this one question. What will technology integration look like in your classroom in 2017? Will you focus on:
Remember when we were in school? In "way back when" land, our teachers painstakingly taught us the basics of personal and business letter writing, right down to the comma placement in a "Thank You" note! If memory serves me, there was a salutation, body, and closing to every written letter. Depending on the audience, there was a difference in the levels of formality and friendliness we were expected to achieve in our sentence structure.
Now it's our turn! How do we cultivate digital citizens in our current student population? We live in a world where many influential communicators lack the most rudimentary pleasantries of modern communication. And they post all the time! It's important that students have opportunity to communicate in modern ways at school. It's our job to provide guidance and structure so that students practice these skills and reach out to a global audiece successfully. Building postive digital citizens through positive online communication is an ongoing process. It's not a one time "Digitial Citizenship" lesson or one month "Be Kind Online" focus. Your Social Media in EDU Challenge: 1. Invite students to author the posts for your existing classroom social media account. (See my previous blog posts in quarter one and two focused on getting started with public Facebook pages, or classroom Twitter accounts.) 2. Set a social media posting schedule for your classroom. How often will your students write the post for your classroom social media account? Scheduling your social media posts on a classroom calendar helps ensure they will happen. 3. Decide the process students will follow to submit their posts to you? Will this become an exit ticket? An email to the teacher? A response to a Google Form? 4. Get Posting! 5. Share your experiences in the comments below. Classroom Posting Ideas: Select any of the posts styles from my blog post 13 Ideas for Classroom Social Media Posts to get started. Try a different one each day, or stick to a theme to develop predictable posting patterns. Be sure to post to your school, district, and classroom hashtag to help reach a wide audience. |
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