Our school is located in a the center of Iowa, in a small town called Stratford. We, along with most other rural Iowa schools, are seeing a continuation of declining enrollment. With the advent of Open Enrollment, every student in the state of Iowa is "fair game." While at a graduation reception a week ago, I spoke with a young mother who lives in a neighboring school district. She "checked" out the pre-school in her school district, and our school district. She decided it was worth the drive to bring her child to our pre-school as we are very progressive with the use of Smart Boards, project based-learning, etc.
I asked her if I wanted to communicate to other young mothers about our fabulous school, how I would do it....I asked, "do you take a newspaper?" "No," she said. "Do you listen to the radio?" "No," she replied.
"Do you watch commercials on TV?" "No, I DVR my shows," She said.
I asked, "How am I supposed to tell others about our wonderful gem of a school?"
"Put it on Facebook!" was her reply. A lightbulb went off in my head, (albeit a dim one.)
After selling it/talking it over with my Supt., & after about 2 hours of adding text, photos and soon-to-be-added videos, showing how progressive we are, our school, located in small town Iowa, is on Facebook! Hoping it will "go viral" and we have to build another school to accommodate all the new students, and the town will be struggling to find housing for all the new families, I have finally found a positive use for FACEBOOK!
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Wonderful! But what about the parents that don't have Facebook? Are there some other free ways to get your school advertised on the internet. Believe it or not, not everyone on the internet has Facebook, and the greater majority of those non Facebookers, are Parents and older adults.
ReplyDeleteLet's not forget about those of us who work for a district who blocks Facebook and other social networking sites on the district network. I don't want you to think that I am poo-pooing your idea - it really makes sense - but until there is a change in attitude from the district powers that control this, it won't take off as a universal idea. But I am hopeful. And Gabe, I ran into this exact problem a few days ago. I wanted to do a Twitter exercise in class and about 10 kids in three classes said that their parents forbid them to Tweet. I won't say that I was surprised by parents forbidding Twitter, but I was a little surprised by the numbers (about 1/3 of the kids.)
ReplyDeleteGabe, you are absolutely correct. However- there is no 1 media that reaches all ages groups. "It was just last August that Facebook hit 100 million users. Since then, an average of 374,000 people have signed up every day. At this rate, Facebook will grow to nearly 300 million people by this time next year." -Farhad Manjoo http://www.slate.com/id/2208678
ReplyDeleteIt seems apparent to me, in order to effectively market our school, FB is the media that reaches the young parents of tomorrow.
Whether we like it or not, Social Media is the new NEWS AT 5.
I love your facebook page! You have upped the ante for school districts--I feel like I need to work on a facebook page for our school right now.
ReplyDeleteAs far as some people not having having a computer or not being signed-up for facebook, I think we just can't worry about that anymore. Most people can have some kind of access (if they want to) through a public library, a friend, or a cell phone.
And, as far as facebook being blocked at school--I believe it is our job to change the attitudes of the powers that be . . . connect your Web 2.0 ideas to learning, have students voice their frustrations, survey other districts your size, ask and understand how your district filter works, whatever you can think of!
Congratulations! It's been fun watching how everyone has begun to use the concepts we are learning in class at their place of employment. If your school is like most places, it seems that multiple approaches and strategies are necessary to reach people and a complete marketing plan (even an informal one) seems to be what is often necessary. I'm certain that you will be successful...the use of the UNI Facebook page has skyrocketed. http://www.facebook.com/universityofnortherniowa
ReplyDeleteGoogle sites is almost as good as Facebook and you don't have to join to be able to see the site. When someone googles your school the site will come up (also you can have a link to it on your school's homepage). I found the following site when I was looking for information about schools with well-managed technology programs. It's a great advertisement for their small schoool.
ReplyDeletehttp://sites.google.com/site/vanmetercommunityschool/home
Wow!!!!
ReplyDeleteYour school is on FaceBook!!!
I love your story about meeting with a mother who doesn't watch TV but hangs out on FaceBook. This IS the way to get out the word.
I watched your video showing an author connecting with students. Loved how she said "Chances are that at the end of your life, you will not say 'Gee, I wish I had watched more TV."
Keep up the Thinking!!!!
Z