Monday, November 23, 2015

Social Media... to me...

Social Media

Social media is a big deal, and getting even bigger in the education world. I’d guess that 80% of the meetings and workshops I’ve attended in the past year refer to or strongly encourage the use of social media in the education profession for communication and professional development.

For me, I’m a Twitter guy first, even though Facebook is on my list. I’m not very high on posting what I’m doing at any particular moment or how I feel about it (and to be honest I really don’t care for other people letting me know how their day is going… or not going…). Twitter provides me access to the minds of the brilliant people I choose to follow. I get to see what they recommend reading or watching. Facebook is mostly to follow what my family and friends are doing.

And really, that’s about all I know about Social Media. It’s all I even care to know.

As a school employee, I would like to pass along two messages to patrons:

1. If you have children on social media, watch what they are doing. Follow or Friend them. Check their profiles and their posts. Make sure that whatever they post, they should be willing to talk about with you.
2. I don’t watch for complaints about the school or its employees on any social media platform. Please do not post complaints there if you want a solution to your problem. If there are issues we need to address, please call us. Be fair to us and give us a chance to resolve them before you rally your followers on how you’ve been wronged. I will not respond to anything Facebook communicates when it comes to what you feel like we should be doing or what we’ve done wrong. Along with that, I’d encourage others not to respond to jump on the bandwagons of these kinds of complaints. Good, old-fashioned conversation is the best way to find solutions. I feel like I’m a pretty approachable guy, so give me a call (872-7600), send me an email (jrumford@usd466.org), or stop by and see me (704 S. College) so we can figure things out.


And, if you want to see what I read or who I follow, follow me on Twitter (Jamie Rumford @JamieRumford)!

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