Twitter: Easiest Way to Get Connected for 21st Century Administrators

If you're looking for a social media tool to get started with in your role as a 21st century administrator, start with Twitter. It is one of the easiest to set up and use, and also the one you will experience the most immediate results. In no time at all, you will find yourself connected with educators  world-wide. If you are at a loss for some ways to use this technology, here's some suggestions based on my own experience.

• Twitter as a listening tool: I have access to two Twitter accounts. One is my school Twitter account, and the other is my personal-professional account. Both serve as listening devices. The school account is an opportunity to both celebrate and announce school events and happenings, and an opportunity to listen in to what you stakeholders are saying about you. It also gives them an opportunity to connect and provide feedback. My personal-professional account gives me ears to the ground; it allows me to listen to the latest conversations about what is going on in the world of education. I can stay informed.
• Twitter as a conversation-facilitator: Twitter can be the device you use to spark conversation. It can be the catalyst that gets the talk started about what is important in your school, or about what you see as a pressing issue. It can be the tool you use to see what others in your personal learning network think about your latest initiatives. You can get world-wide advice on the topics that matter to you.
• Twitter as a stakeholder-connector: Twitter can the tool you use to build trust with your school community. You can use it to engage your stakeholders in what is happening in your school, and give them a tool in which to respond, but respond with brevity. It is another way to connect with those who have the greatest concerns about what happens in your school.
• Twitter as a personal learning network connector: This expands Twitter beyond just being a way to make announcements. It means you have a tool to connect you with other education leaders world-wide who have a great deal of knowledge and expertise to share with you. Twitter has the potential to provide you as a school leader with the collective wisdom of thousands of school administrators.

Twitter is the easiest tool for the administrator who is just beginning to wade into social media. As authors Kitty Porterfield and Meg Carnes state in their book Why Social Media Matters: School Communication in the Digital Age, "At its core, Twitter provides a way to listen to your community, be responsive, provide interesting content for people to share, and send your school's or district's message to a wider audience." More than that, Twitter expands your world beyond your school building. Twitter is truly the easiest, starting point for administrators, and educators to get connected.

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Finally, Definitive Manual for School Leaders on Engaging in Using Social Media

In their new book, Why Social Media Matters: School Communication in the Digital Age, authors Kitty Porterfield and Meg Carnes write:

“Skill in communication is a key ingredient for school leaders’ success in today’s complex education environment, and this communication now includes social media.”

As these author’s suggest, school leaders “can either learn to use these powerful tools or stand hopelessly by and the information---good and bad---swirls around them.” School administrators are still spending too much time trying to decide whether social media is an enemy or an ally. What they don’t realize, that choice isn’t really up to them. Social media is here to stay. It’s not a fad to be waited out. It’s not gimmick to avoid, and it is not a piece of contraband that can be stopped at the schoolhouse door with policy and Internet filters. Social media is 21st century communications, and school leaders would be guilty of mal-practice not to both learn about its power and place in our modern society.

Portfield and Carnes' book Why Social Media Matters: School Communication in the Digital Age, is an excellent starting point for school leaders to begin the journey or learning about the power of social media. I’ve read several books on social media written for school leaders this year, and this book is the best by far. It is a no-nonsense, easy-to-read manual on social media. I would  place it on top of my Ed Tech Book List for 2012.

Why Social Media Matters: School Communication in the Digital Age begins by offering readers, specifically school leaders, a view of social media for what it is, a 21st century form of communication. This is a slightly different perspective from other books I’ve read this year, which have focused on its power in the classroom and in developing professional learning networks. Portfield and Carnes zero in on the very arguments and ideas that interest me as a school level principal:

• Why is social media so important to me as a school leader? Why should I care? What happens if I stay on the social media sidelines? How do I get started and what tools should I start with?
• How can I plan a social media strategy for my school or district? What tools do I need to be engaged in using in my social media campaign? What place do these same tools have in my classrooms and schools?
• How can I make the content of my social media messages effective? What should I communicate through social media? How do I set up a dialogue through social media with my stakeholders? What kinds of guidelines do I need to keep the conversation productive and focused on issues so that I don’t appearing to be censoring honest criticism?

Why Social Media Matters: School Communication in the Digital Age is not a book that offers strategies for implementing the media in the classroom. It isn’t just a book about engaging in social media for the purposes of creating and sustaining online professional learning networks. It is a perfect manual for school administrators wanting to maximize the use of social media to communication with parents 21st century-style through engagement in on-going conversations that aren’t one-way, but multi-ways. This volume needs to be required study and reading in school administration classes everywhere.

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