Blog – Latest stories tagged 'social_media,'

Latest report from BBC Newsround reports 3/4 of children aged 10-12 have a social media profile

Put simply 75% of children are breaking legal terms and conditions, a shockingly high number. As we know once the 50% mark is reached it is very difficult for parents not to bow to peer pressure as they do not want their children to miss out or be labelled as “uncool”. The problem is self perpetuating resulting in such high levels of young children using age inappropriate apps. Why is it that in the online world such terms and conditions are just blithely ignored?

The online and offline world seem to operate with very different sets of instructions. A recent straw poll saw 100% of year 5 and 6 children say they had watched or played a game with a rating of 18. When posed the same question with regards to films only 3 hands went up. Despite all the good work that goes on with organisations such as NSPCC, PEGI, SwGfL to name but a few the message is clearly not getting through to parents or children. How do educational professionals deal with this, as the saying goes “You can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”. E-safety seminars within schools are notorious for low attendance, with parents either deliberately or naively turning a blind eye.

In the Ofcom report on Children’s media use parents cited the main reason they did not, for example use safe search, was because they trusted their children. Trust is not enough, children must be protected. There is a difference between “trust” and “protection”. We need to educate parents that even if you “trust” your child you still need to protect them. Children wear cycling helmets – this is not because we don’t “trust” them to fall off their bikes – it is because we want to protect them.

For the first time, children are now spending more time on the Internet than watching TV and are accessing content unsupervised at an increasingly younger age, so rather than turning a blind eye, parents should be actively discussing Internet use with their children. If parents are familiar with the online playground their children are in, they will at least have some notion of the potential risks. And once they do know where their children are hanging out, they then have the opportunity to suggest safer alternatives such as ChatFOSS. Afterall, we don’t want to prevent young people from learning how to use social media properly as it is integral to modern life. By showing them safer alternatives which teach them the principles without the risks, it’s like teaching them to ride a bike with stabilisers.

Happily, the majority of underage usage of apps such as Instagram, twitter and facebook is entirely innocent, however that does not mean such usage does not bring with it risks. The reported increase in mental health issues that is being attributed to social media seems to have no impact on parental decisions. Can the recent Newsround report stating that 37% of children who use social media underage are friends with someone they have never met encourage parents to be more involved in e-safety? I hope so.

We would like to thank our latest guest blogger, Alicia Coad, for her thoughts on this topic. To find out more about Alicia and ChatFOSS, click here.

Download this useful guide to making the best use of social media for your school

Making the decision to promote your school through social media is a huge step. With the protection and safeguarding of students at the forefront of their minds, many school leaders worry about the risks.

But the benefits of using social media to promote your school and engage with stakeholders – parents, students, teachers, governors and the local community – can far outweigh the risks. In many instances, these risks can be easily mitigated with effective forward planning.

The benefits of using social media in schools include:

Better talent identification and recruitment (LinkedIn is great for this)

Improved communications with parents

Two-way dialogue with parents to improve student outcomes

Bigger or better public profile for your school (building public awareness of your achievements, successes and specialisms)

Increased local business engagement for both student career development opportunities, potential sponsorship or events and venue hire income

Improved internal communications among staff and students

Better career prospects for students (students who understand how to use social media are often able to connect with potential employers, and have heightened awareness of how their social media presence can positively or negatively affect their chances of becoming employed)

This downloadable PDF guide from the digital strategists and educators at Jonny Ross Consultancy gives the top ten tips for schools on using social media for promotion, communication and engagement.

It includes advice on setting up social media accounts, managing risks through forward planning and setting out clear guidance policies, and running campaigns to promote your school and engage with stakeholders.

For more free advice on using social media in schools, visit the JRC blog and search for “schools”.

Safer Internet Day #esstips competition
We are delighted to announce that the team at Johnny Ross Consultancy are adding to the #esstips SID2016 competition prize pot. Each of the category winners will receive a one hour consultancy, reviewing their school social media profile, with advice on what they should be doing, what they could be doing and how they can use social media to make a difference for their school. Find out more

Social media experts, Jonny Ross Consultancy, advise on the benefits of social media for schools

Before we delve into a debate on the opportunities and risks of social media in education, let me share with you an example of how just one tweet paid for a school’s entire annual marketing budget.

John Buskell is a social media expert who manages a Twitter account for a senior high school in Sweden. The school uses social media to engage with kids from nearby junior highs before they move up to seniors. Buskell set up Twitter alerts for mentions about the local junior highs, so he was notified when a girl tweeted “I hate Engelska Skolan junior high”. He replied to the tweet on behalf of the high school with a “Hang in there.” The girl tweeted back, “Wow, you’re on Twitter?” and she started checking out the school. She came along to the open house and he talked to her, as part of the marketing he was doing for the school. The girl ended up choosing the school for her three-year A-level program. As each student brings from the local government around £9000 (equivalent) per year, that one tweet effectively paid for the school’s marketing budget that year.

When I spoke at the AMDIS conference on the use of social media in schools, I asked delegates to tell me about their concerns. Negative comments, legal compliance, hacking and cyber bullying all came up as potential risks that people were concerned about. But, like school trips, social media offers hugely valuable learning opportunities and experiences.

Avoidance doesn’t remove the risks (kids will try things out anyway), it just means young people don’t learn to manage risks online, and you don’t get chance to influence the outcomes. Like school trips, risks can be mitigated to either reduce the chance of them happening or to reduce their impact. Read more about managing online risks in schools here.

I strongly believe (and this is supported by the many success stories) that there are huge potential benefits to schools in engaging with social media, and these far outweigh any risks.

What are the benefits of using social media in schools?

(1) Increase students’ employability

Over half of employers now screen candidates on social media [research by CareerBuilder], and many young people are missing out on jobs because of inappropriate content about themselves online. By educating students on the appropriate use of social media, you can increase their employment prospects. This includes explaining privacy settings for different platforms, what they should never share on social media, and what they can do to show their suitability for a role, e.g. writing a blog on their chosen topic.

(2) Parent/student engagement and reaching new audiences

Without interest from parents and students within the catchment area, schools would cease to exist. Local community engagement is vital. Students often make decisions about college or sixth form themselves, and social media can be the perfect way to reach them – and potential new students. For example, if you send out a tweet that is then favourited by one of your followers, you will then automatically become visible to all of their followers, and so on. Social media engagement therefore increases your visibility (locally and nationally) and exposes you new audiences.

(3) Improved communication with stakeholders

Social media allows news, information and updates to be quickly and cost effectively broadcast to both parents and students. For example: “the school is closed due to bad weather” can be sent out as one message to thousands of people, saving the time and the expense of letters and phone calls.

Social media allows schools to communicate in a much more efficient, effective and time sensitive manner. By having a profile on different social media platforms, stakeholders can communicate with your school whenever, wherever and however best suits them.

(4) Ability to monitor and manage your school's reputation

Many schools cite fear of negative comments and reputation damage as a reason to avoid social media. But people will always talk about you online whether you’re there or not. So by being “in the room”, you can influence the outcome of those conversations positively. You can set up alerts on social media so you are notified when people talk about you online, giving you the opportunity to correct misinformation and “nip in the bud” any negative discussions.

The only way to manage your online reputation is to have an online presence. Having an online profile that parents, teachers and students can communicate with gives you the opportunity to improve relations and show that you can deal with issues quickly and proactively.

(5) Effective targeting on different social media platforms

Which social media platform should we be on? This is a common question we are asked when working with schools on their social media presence. Choosing the right platform(s) and sharing the right kind of content can help you effectively target different stakeholder groups for better results.

The platforms you decide to use should depend on who you want to engage with, and where those people are. For example, you could use Facebook to engage with parents (and share information about school news and successes) and for business engagement (and share information about venue hire and sponsorship opportunities).

As a general rule of thumb, it is much better to create a profile on one or two platforms and ensure that communication and engagement is regular and constant than to create four or five platforms and quickly realise that you do not have the capacity to maintain such platforms.

If this blog post has interested you, then make sure you keep your eyes peeled for our FREE 'Top 10 tips on how to use social media for schools' e-guide.

Whether you are a headmaster, a governor, a teacher or even a parent, this downloadable PDF document will provide you with 10 simple ways to use social media in order to improve your school's visibility and credibility.