Why is my school on social media?

Just last summer, I was having an excited conversation with another principal about social media.  He was not understanding why I post as often as I do.  For this other principal, he did not seen the connection between the time it takes to post and what the social media post do for the schools.  i

I have been a believer of social media to bring parents and community into your school for years.  I also feel it is a great communication tool.  Many parents, grandparents and community members cannot come to school every day, week or month to experience school.  However, parents, grandparents and others want to help students be successful in school.  They want to be involved.  They want to be able to talk to their students about things that have happened in the day.   The key for schools is to figure out how to bring in the parents and community.  The slide above is actually something I made for my school community to show how we communicate about learning at Grant Elementary School.

My goal is to post on social media, five times a day.  Now, it is a goal.  Some days I hit it, some days I exceed it, and other days I don't make it.  However, I can never capture all of the amazing moments that happen in a school day.  So, this is a process that I am continuing to grow and improve on.

I have also tried to play with "going live" on Facebook.  If we have something exciting for us to share, I try to share it with the community (or the world).  At the beginning of November, Mac Barnett (@macbarnett) came to our school and did an Author presentation.  He read some of his books and interacted with our K-5 students.  I decided to "go live" and film him reading his book to 300 students.  It was interesting for me to watch the "thumbs up" and "hearts" floating across the screen as I am filming.  Parents were commenting about the presentation (and the filming) during the Live stream.  After the amazing presentation, a parent posted this on our Facebook page.

This was very meaningful for me to read this.  I made me feel that all of the time and effort I put into showing our educational story on social media was valuable.  It also made me realize how helpful the social media posts are to families and parents.  My time is supporting learning.  My time is helpfuling the comunity see all of the amazing things we do at Grant Elementary!