Connectivity,+Facebook+Fa15

=== Connectivity – Find 3 examples of school Facebook pages. Post the links in the Wiki and your brief explanation of why or why not these pages effectively engage and grow community. Please put your name next to your post. Put a line on the page after your post.===

Tara Swanton

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Morris-Knolls-High-School/112214912123634?fref=ts This is my high school's facebook page. It seems to do a great job promoting sports. There is a great deal of posts from students and parents who attended sporting events and posted pictures from the games. There were also some graduation pictures and a few posts about different practices being cancelled. I did not see a lot of other information other than posts about sporting events. I think this page could do a better job engaging the community by focusing on other things. Not everyone is a sports fan! https://www.facebook.com/KDM-PTA-149679275047276/timeline/ This page does a great job notifying parents and members about upcoming events happening at the school. I also found it helpful that they notified members about early dismissals and delayed openings. I also liked the way that members posted comments about the great things going on at the school. This page really seemed to effectively engage the community in a positive way. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Thomas-Jefferson-Middle-School/194038347289752?fref=ts This page also does a great job highlighting all the great things happening at the school. There were many pictures of the students and staff together at different events that happened at the school.This page really highlighted all aspects of the school from sport events to award ceremonies. They didn't just focus on one aspect of the school. I feel this site also did a great job engaging the community.

Dawn Marchese

https://www.facebook.com/Teacher-to-Teacher-172477226159717/timeline/ This is a facebook page that often posts articles and inspirational quotes for teachers. There are many posts and links that are interesting, and I often read articles about standardized testing, the common core, and the difficulties that we all often face in reaching out students. It is often inspirational and allows you to feel as if the people running the page really understand the reality of teaching, and also of the needs of our students. I get these posts on my facebook feed and I enjoy what I read. It is informative and also nice to see comments from other teachers so you can see that you are not alone in your feelings. There are also many informative articles such as recognizing dyslexia, etc. They cover quite a bit of ground. https://www.facebook.com/WeAreTeachers This facebook page offers many ideas, printables, suggestions, and grant ideas and money to teachers. They have even hosted a virtual author to visit classrooms. I have just discovered this page and it looks interesting and informative. This page effectively engages and grows a community of educators by posting ideas that allows us to collaborate from afar. https://www.facebook.com/groups/377172622354878/ This is from my school's PTA. This page informs parents about all that is happening in the school. The moderators do a fantastic job of keeping everyone informed, and they provide a true sense of community. Most of the parents who post there are huge proponents of our school and teachers. The only negative is that every so often, a parent will post something inappropriate, such as a complaint about homework, and then the moderators must get involved. However, for the most part, it is a very positive atmosphere and it gives me pleasure to write on the board when needed, and to help people with questions about our school.

Rebecca Wise https://www.facebook.com/TheCornerstoneForTeachers?fref=ts This Facebook page is dedicated to sharing inspirational thoughts and tips / strategies for teachers. I have used several of them over the past year and have found them very helpful. It is humorous, light, and helpful. There are over 80,000 followers of this page. A lot of shares and comments help spread the Cornerstone for Teacher's ideas. https://www.facebook.com/North-East-High-School-830427113731233/timeline/ This is my high school's Facebook page. It is new, up and running just this August. We are having a difficult time finding followers / encouraging our students to like / follow the page. We have one teacher who is responsible for updating the page with news, events, and sporting information. It is really a great page. I wish we could find a way to get our students to want to connect with us. https://www.facebook.com/fansofteachertube?fref=ts Teacher tube has over 160,000 followers. This page shares content related videos as well as informational videos for teachers, highlighting the information that can be found on their web page.

Lynda Leonetti [|https:www.facebook.com/VFES19355] This Facebook page is a page that incorporates all of the programs under Valley Forge Educational Services. I worked for one of the schools that makes up what is now VFES. I worked for The Vanguard School. What I like about the page is that is has a good visual layout. I believe the photos represent a good variety of all the programs that are serviced through VFES. The only downside of the page is that I think because all posts need to be approved it takes away some of the spontaneity that may have existed before it was created. Teachers, and staff are less likely to post events in there classroom because all posts need to be approved, and we all know that during a busy day we may not have the time to take to post something that would've taken a second to post to your own page. I believe this page is designed to grow community through all staff and families that are involved with VFES and it does reach that purpose as it equally shares information on all of the programs. [] This Facebook page is from my alma-mater. It was difficult to locate because there are several trinity High Schools. After locating the page, I found that it adequately portrays the school. It definitely promotes the excellence of the program. I felt that their was a good balance of information, and pictures. Again, I don't feel the personal touch and life come through, but the layout is good, and there were frequent posts. I'm sure if you are currently enrolled in the school you may visit the page frequently. As an alumni of the school, I don't feel that this would make feel a part of the community. I also think it may isolate others who are not attending, or have attended the school. [] This Facebook page is for my local school district. I've never visited the page before today, and I don't know that i would return. I felt the layout was way too busy. They had a section for photos, news, and updates. Most people go to FB to peruse and find pictures of their children, and find out quick information about something specific. I believe this would be difficult with the set up of this page. As a community member I did not feel that the page effectively engaged its neighbors and taxpayers. I will say that if i had a child who attended the school i may feel like it miss the mark there as well. As a parent I wouldn't want to search that much for information, and I would be more inclined to go to the school's website.

Brad Stetler

[] This site is for the school district that I grew up and went to from K-12. It is used mostly as a portal for the district to deliver information to the community. Updates about the schools are mostly what are shown. There are also places to highlight student achievement, which is done occasionally on this site. I think that there should be more highlighting of student/teacher/district achievement.

[] This is the facebook site for the Philadelphia School District. I was very interested to see what kind of page the district would have. Teaching in Philadelphia I know that there is unbelievable concern both at the district and in the public charter schools to bring enrollment numbers up. With about 1/3 of all students going to public charter schools instead of district schools it has put the district in already worse financial situation then it was in before. This site is mostly used for delivering important information to the community, but I noticed they are starting to highlight individual schools. I think this is a great idea and a very good way to highlight some positive aspects of the district and build a better image amongst the community.

[] This is the Hatboro Horsham school district page. This is the district I was a long term sub and also did my student teaching. I think of the 3 pages I looked at this seemed to be the most informative. I think all were easy to navigate, but as far as informing the community not only of events and calendar changes, there was a emphasis highlighting positive aspects of the schools in the district. I think that when using social media for a school it is about being able to deliver information, but also to improve the perception of the school in the community. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Flora Valdivia https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dover-High-School-New-Jersey/113613095315895?fref=ts This is the FB site of Dover High School, which is the school I graduated from and I currently work at this same district. Actually, there were several FB accounts, I believe that none of them are official. Most of the accounts seemed to have been opened by individuals that attended Dover High. The one that I investigated has very short. It showed pictures of a recent renovation of one of the schools hallways. It also included basic information about the school - a general description. There no current information and the most recent post is of a student going to orientation. This could have potential for community if more people subscribed and posted information and pictures of the school's events and such.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Morris-Hills-High-School/109606945732903 This FB page is for Morris Hills High School, which is one of the regional high schools for town I live in - Rockaway, NJ. The page is very short - there are only 3 postings. I am assuming it is newly opened. There is general information about the school but no current events or anything you'd find on a website. I do think these FB pages could provide a forum for a community to build. Although I have a FB page, I am just an observer of everyone else's postings; I don't ever post anything on it. As such, I don't know much - can anyone post something on someone else's page? If so, can anyone post on these high school pages? If so, then this could provide a tool for community building.

https://www.facebook.com/RoxburyPublicSchools?fref=ts&ref=br_tf&rf=135711596478630 Now this is a Facebook Page! This is the FB page for Roxbury public schools (although I was looking for the high school, I got the whole district). This is an informative FB page - there are job postings, announcements of upcoming events, club information, etc. along with pictures of sporting events and videos and other information. This is a great site for community building - it is bright and interesting and engaging. It is informative and provides a forum for anyone associated with Roxbury schools to view the happenings of their schools. It is like their "Neighbor News." I'm surprised that other local high schools don't have a similar page; those pages seemed opened by anyone and are unofficial. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________