Schools Embrace Social Networking November 17th, 2009
Tom Amontree

In today’s Internet-savvy era, many schools are realizing there’s a more effective way to communicate with parents, students and alumni than traditional school newsletters or notes buried in backpacks.  Going digital and connecting online via social networks is the logical, next step – particularly given the fact that Digg, Twitter and Facebook have 32 million, 58 million and 411 million unique monthly visitors, according to September 2009 Comscore worldwide data.

For some institutions, the school blog provides a modern look into school activities, featuring stories about students, photos and even video of recent sporting events or the school play.  This allows parents to connect with school happenings on their own time, and in a more dynamic way.  A growing number of schools also now have Facebook pages and are building a “fan” base that enables two-way communication – from promoting a school event to building support for a fundraising initiative.  Twitter, too, has found a place among educational communications.  For example, one Maryland school is using the technology to update parents on the school’s expansion project among other monthly updates.

Social networking offers exciting possibilities for students too.  According to a National School Board Association Survey, “almost 60 percent of students who use social networking talk about education topics online and, surprisingly, more than 50 percent talk specifically about schoolwork.”  While many schools are slow to embrace social learning networks as a part of their curriculums, a number of promising online programs are emerging that could enhance education.

Remember the days of pen pals?  This idea gets a digital makeover with ePals, which not only connects students from more than 200 countries and translates their e-mails, but also provides collaborative projects with classrooms worldwide ranging from biodiversity to human rights.  Along similar lines, CultureQuest and iEarn provide online classroom projects that help students become knowledgeable global citizens.  And Globaloria, sponsored by the World Wide Workshop Foundation, is a social learning network of educational, programmable web sites and related wikis and blogs that has been touted as a pathway for digital literacy for young people.

In today’s digital age, broadband is driving important education advances that transcend geographic boundaries and expose students to global perspectives.  And children worldwide are excited and engaged by interactive online learning tools, which heighten their interest in learning and help develop the minds of the future.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 4:16 pm and is filed under Reports and Studies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.