Parent Coffee - Twitter!

Once again Mr. Casal will be talking Twitter during a Parent Coffee session. Last year was his first year at Heathcote and the first annual "Twitter @HeathcoteSchool Parent Coffee" was held. As a school community Heathcote has made amazing strides in using social media, Twitter in particular, to create a vibrant, transparent learning community that puts the awesome work of our students at the forefront.

It is now time time for the 2nd annual "Twitter @HeathcoteSchool Parent Coffee!"

This is the agenda, with associated links to resources, for the event...

Addressing Twitter concerns...

I am often asked about social media’s role in education, Twitter in particular. These questions are often brought about by parent concerns, which often mirror the initial concerns of teachers.

When addressing parent concerns I approach it just as I do with teachers:

1. concerns are normal
2. I’m happy we are discussing concerns as opposed to flat out rejecting the concept
3. concerns are a learning process for me as much as for those bringing them to me, as they help me reflect on my practice as well as see what I do through an external lens

I have written many things in the past about social media in schools but there are always new questions that aren’t addressed by old posts.

This post looks at the two most recent concerns I’ve received:

1. There is a time stamp if you follow it. One can piece together a class schedule.
2. Why are teachers stopping instruction to take photos?

Let me address each of these one at a time…

Tweeters @HeathcoteSchool!

I think it is important to promote, and celebrate colleagues. Especially when they step out of their comfort zone and embrace new challenges.

When I joined the staff at Heathcote Elementary School last year only a handful of teachers had Twitter accounts. And those that had accounts used them mostly for tweeting a picture of the whiteboard with the homework written on it.

When I interviewed for the job I expressed my passion for Twitter in schools and I was given full support by our principal, Ms. Stile, to push it as a school-wide initiative.

And my new colleagues were awesome. They jumped in full force.

Twitter @Heathcote - Embracing social media & addressing concerns

I've written a few posts over the last week about how we will be using Twitter here at Heathcote.

• A primer
• Our hashtag

I also wanted to put up a post addressing the two most obvious sides of the same coin, the benefits and concerns.

Twitter @HeathcoteSchool - Our Hashtag!

In the previous post, Twitter @HeathcoteSchool, I wrote about Twitter as a platform and offered a solution for following Twitter users without actually have a Twitter account, or even a smartphone.

The previous post also listed all the teaches with Twitter accounts at Heathcote.

This post is more geared toward people with a Twitter account looking to get a more streamlined Heathcote experience out of the Twitter platform...

Twitter @HeathcoteSchool - a primer

Twitter is a great resource. It is no longer just Ashton Kutcher talking about what he ate for breakfast (although, I'm sure there is probably still a lot of that going on).

These days teachers are using Twitter as another method of communicating with parents. There is a Heathcote School Twitter account that posts school announcements, shares classroom work, and in general acts as another way to connect the school with the community. A lot of parents have signed up for Twitter (its free) just to follow their child's classroom feed or the Heathcote School feed. There are many teachers who speak highly of the home-school connecting Twitter fosters and the instructional engagement it supports.

Social media at Heathcote

Yesterday at the faculty meeting I mentioned my love of social media in education.

I have written a few blog posts about how we used social media in my previous school. I will be writing new posts here, on HeathcoteTech, about best practices and the great successes of our social media use. In the meantime feel free to read some of the previous things I've written:

• Why tweet in Kindergarten? Ask @mariacamastro
• We tweet @PS10Brooklyn. A lot.
• Social media in our K-5 school
• My students do my tweeting
• Twitter @PS10Brooklyn - our hashtags

All of the above posts and more here: http://thecasalos.blogspot.com/search/label/twitter


Let me know if you have any questions. I'm excited to get all of Heathcote sharing our successes with the world and demystifying social media alongside our students....