Some notes from the “Tweeting Your Own Horn” article by Kevin Butler in the February 2010 issue of District Administration.

Here are some of the take-aways from the article for me:

• Houston Independent school District Superintendent Terry Grier uses Twitter to give updates on his meetings with staff and media interviews, link to interesting education news, and share important issues and facts about the district (aside: how many superintendents get someone else to do their tweeting for them, like the resident Public Relations/Social Media expert?)
• “It’s not only that I enjoy using it as a social networking piece,” Grier (@tgrierhisd) says, “I like to use this to help communicate what I’m about as an instructional leader or administrative leader.” (Aside: love the the use of the word “enjoy” in this quote together with “communicate”)
• Salt Lake City School District shares school award announcements, events, links to articles or television news stories concerning its schools.
• In addition to informing users of upcoming school events and showing pictures from school activities, the District’s Facebook site has links to local news stories about teachers, students and programs.
• “We hope that as the number of people following us on Twitter [ and Facebook] grows, this will become a more effective notification tool” (Salt Lake City school District)
• The Tempe (Arizona) Elementary School District embraced Twitter and Facebook in 2008 “because this was really becoming a way that a lot of people in the world were communicating.”
• The sites–Twitter and Facebook–should be viewed as channels for “short bursts of information” with links to other web sites where viewers can learn more. Each of the district’s Facebook and Twitter posts automatically include links to the District’s Web site.
• 3 types of messages lend themselves to Twitter and Facebook: general district information, such as state testing dates; summaries and links to feature stories profiling student work, new technology or other developments; and helpful tips for parents.
• 31% of adults living in poverty-level households have no landline and rely solely on wireless phones for telecommunication, according to a 2009 report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People in poorer households are more likely to go wireless-only than other income groups, the survey found.
• Some districts are using Twitter to communicate within the organization–with employees. “This has just given us an opportunity to share info with principals more quickly”
• “I would recommend other districts use Twitter to communicate with employees, because as our working population becomes younger, they are more in tune with using technology in the work environment…As educators we should always seek new ways to stay current.“
• “One-way communication allows us to tell our story to various stakeholders…Getting feedback from this communication–both positive and negative–allows us to assess, evaluate and ultimately improve the educational services we provide.”

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