For this assignment,
I was asked to search Facebook and Twitter with a librarian’s eye, looking at
pages of school libraries as well as the Twitter pages of some of the biggest
names of those in educational technology. It was definitely an interesting task
and made me question how well I am using social media as a librarian. In
today’s society, this is a great way to reach out to our students, parents and
community.
I am on Facebook
daily. I scroll through my news feed lurking at people’s posts. It helps
me stay up to date on news and what is going on in the lives of family and
friends that I may not talk to on a day to day basis. It is also a way to
escape and read fun posts or look at cute pictures of babies and animals. I’ve
searched businesses and companies but for some reason, not sure why, the one thing
I have not yet looked into is school libraries on Facebook.
So, I first typed school
library into the top search bar. It was a very strange mix of pages listed. Of
course School Library Journal came up first. The first school to pop up was
Kerr HS, which is in my school district and I happen to know the librarian. Their
library’s Facebook page has about 139 likes and seems to post about every 5
days or so. Most of the posts consist of shared pages about book adaptions
to film, book reviews and a few funny quotes or cartoons. Every posted was
shared from another page, so it is being used very much like Twitter where one
retweets someone else’s tweet.
The next library that
showed up in the feed was Clifton Hills Elementary which is located in
Chattanooga, TN. There were only 37 likes to the page and when I checked their
page, it shows they haven’t posted since July of last summer. They had many
pictures of students in the library collaborating with teachers and of students
working on makerspace projects. It’s a shame they didn’t keep up with the page
this year.
Another school I
checked was Dobie High School in Houston, TX. Their page had 602 likes and 591
following their page. They haven’t posted since right before Christmas break,
but before that there are multiple posts a day. I actually noticed that they
must have their Twitter page connected to their Facebook page because many of
their posts says retweeted and then has the link or page they took it from. The posts range from showcasing a Skype
session with an author, to retweets from Book Riot and Epic Reads. I also
noticed that they post pictures from the library Instagram account as well.
They must have all of their social media pages linked so whichever one a parent
or student prefers- they can always stay connected.
The last school I
looked at was Buckeye High School in Deville, LA. It had the most likes and
followers at 1,020. Their page seems more like a Facebook page representing the
school rather than the library. They definitely
keep their page current; they had posted even within the time I was
searching. Their page shared morning
announcements, funny videos, pictures of events happening at the school-
including sporting events, as well as shared posts about favorite books. It
almost seems like this library page is the go-to place to see what is going on
in the school. They also have an archive
of pictures of all school events throughout the years.
In my opinion, there
are some advantages and disadvantages to using Facebook to promote a school
library. Some advantages are the fact that Facebook is so popular and many
students and parents are frequent users. You can link several pages together
with Instagram or Twitter enabling the user to update several pages often. The drawbacks
are the fact that most districts do not allow access to Facebook from school computers
due to their firewalls. Updating the page would have to be done on the
librarian’s own time and devices.
After searching Facebook,
I moved on to Twitter. Twitter is also a popular social media site that many students
and parent use often. I have two Twitter accounts- one for school and another
personal one that I also use for class. Twitter is very popular with most
districts as a way to get information out to the parents and community. It is a
fast, easy way to showcase what is going on in the library, in classrooms and
on campus as a whole. I also use it to retweet links that I think parents would
be interested in.
So for this assignment,
I followed the posts of several important names in educational technology. One
that I’ve always been interested in is Kathy Shrock (@kathyshrock) who shares several
of her links about using iPads and other edtech sites. She posted about a new
app called Toontastic and shared her test run.
OK, Google's Toontastic 3D for iPad is seriously fun! My (lame) test: https://vimeo.com/199413908
Another name I followed was The Daring Librarian (@GwynethJones).
She was at the FETC conference recently and most of her posts were related
that. She shared other posts about great sites for educators like the ones
below. I loved sharing Flocabulary with my teachers when I was a specialist and
will continue to do so as a librarian. There were a few posts that I had to
click and then keep clicking links to get to the actual page and that is a bit
of a chore, but it had some great ideas.
Exactly! @Flocabulary provides pedagogy, engagement, and hip-hop awesomeness! My friend @accordin2jo is an EXPERT! #FETC
25 awesome apps for teachers, recommended by teachers via the awesome @Edutech20 http://sco.lt/6gebr7
I looked at Jim Lerman
(@Jimlerman) next. He had a mixture of posts. He made recommendations on books
that children should read that teach empathy. He had several posts about virtual
reality as well as many posts about engagement. I especially like the suggested
tools and apps for diverse learners and special needs students.
30 Of The Best Books To Teach Children Empathy - http://sco.lt/7v9zFJ
75 best apps for special education via @khmmc http://sco.lt/8O42yX
27 tools for diverse learners via @khmmc http://sco.lt/5HkGFl
Buffy Hamilton (@buffyjhamilton)
shares many tweets and pictures showcasing her students writing work. She has a
few retweets about things that interest her such as the Challenger and items on
sale. I like seeing student work that been completed. It enables teachers and others
ideas for their own classes.
The last Twitter
account that I looked at was Linda Braun (@lbraun2000). Linda also had a real
mix of posts that covered so many different topics. She retweeted several YALSA
posts and others that interested her. I like that she shares her thoughts on
all her retweets instead of just hitting retweet.
A rsrc u shld def chk out
Twitter is probably
one of the most useful social media sites for educators and librarians. There
is so much information out there that is interesting and helpful to librarians
once you sort throught some other personal posts. The hardest part is finding
the time to read it all and follow some of their links. Facebook has it’s merits,
but I think that Twitter is a better source of information, humor, app
suggestions, reviews and more.
Sources:
Facebook.
(n.d.). Retrieved January 26, 2017, from https://m.facebook.com/Kerr-HS-Library-713210525430626/
Facebook.
(n.d.). Retrieved January 26, 2017, from https://m.facebook.com/CHESlibrary/?tsid=0.7968421087909259&source=typeahead
Facebook. (n.d.).
Retrieved January 26, 2017, from https://m.facebook.com/dobielibrary/
Facebook. (n.d.). Retrieved January 26, 2017,
from https://m.facebook.com/Buckeye-High-School-Library-186205981464442/?tsid=0.9968160932918648&source=typeahead
