Mediaboss Marketing

DONNELLSON Central Lee may be moving into social networking, as was discussed by the school board at its regular meeting Monday night.

Teachers have approached Superintendent John Henriksen to open communications with Facebook and Twitter accounts. Henriksen explained that he did not use social media himself, so when he was approached, he contacted someone more experienced with school-wide social media sites.

The idea is not a new one, with many schools taking to social media to promote events and honor students, and provide weekly or monthly calendars. According to Henriksen, the Facebook and Twitter pages would be monitored by one person, who would post on behalf of the schools. The specifics of the school districts social media pages still need to be discussed.

We are still looking at internal policies to facilitate such a page, Henrikson told the board. The decision will be made at a later meeting.

Social networking websites are becoming increasingly popular. In any setting, the risks of inappropriate use of such a page are present. Henrikson presented a policy to the board that would limit the amount of communication between Central Lee staff and students.

Central Lee already has a policy in place that addresses reasonable professional communication between students and staff. The new policy would be more specific toward social media sites, and would address the staff friending or following students from their personal accounts.

Kim Miller raised her concerns about what would be considered appropriate connections.

With a smaller district like ours, there are more opportunities for relationships outside of school, such as church, she said, adding that different social media users would have different definitions of appropriate connections. Henrikson acknowledged the subjective nature of the policy, and the motion was tabled for further clarification.

Despite not having a social media site just yet, Central Lee is by no means lagging in electronic teaching methods. The school district is one of a few in the state with one-to-one computer capabilities, which made it a candidate for electronic testing. Some of this years Iowa Tests of Educational Development were taken on computers.

Curriculum Director Heather Fuger surveyed freshmen on the experience, and presented the board with the positive response. She said that the tools provided address major issues with test-taking in the past. For example, a student taking a test out of a book could not highlight or make any marks in the booklet. The electronic test was complete with a highlighter and the ability gray out answers at the students request.

Continued here:
Central Lee looks at social networking