Apr 02 2008
Getting administrations to buy in to social networking
The Journal has a detailed article about some of the things you can do to get your administrations to buy-in to the concepts and benefits of social networking. Here’s some highlights:
So just to get started, you’ll need to find ways to broach the subject without scaring off stakeholders. That means focusing on the form of social media right for your school; tying a social media program into learning objectives; and finding the right ways to break the ice with administrators, IT/technology directors, and other teachers.
Identifying the social tools that fit with your school’s goals and objectives can go a long way to smoothing the adoption curve. Start with what the students will learn using the tools without identifying the focus on learning the tools themselves.
Just as businesses looking to implement social media solutions need to tie their programs to core business objectives, classroom teachers, curriculum planners, and administrators looking to implement some type of social media solution need to tie their program to a learning objective. Is there a specific expected schoolwide learning objective that you’re trying to meet? Remember, you can’t effectively tie a social media program to a technology-based learning objective.The goal of a social media program is in simple terms to foster and enhance communication between people and to socialize learning; the technology skills needed by students and staff to execute a program of this nature need already to be in place, and if they’re not, then technology objectives (Netiquette, e-mail literacy, search literacy, basic multimedia literacy, password creation, keyboarding, mousing) need to be completed first.
I couldn’t agree with this more. Before you put the time, effort, and “political capital” into an educational network solution (much more palatable than social network) make sure the people who will be using it have the prerequisite skills necessary to make it work.
