The “social” half of “social media” is more than the latest cat videos crowding your home feed or posting your child’s birthday party pictures in a public album for every second cousin to like. A lot of earnest, constructive conversation occurs on online platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, tackling everything from the latest news headlines to standardized testing. If you’re like to be a part of the latest conversations surrounding education and stay up-to-date on the latest best practices, we’ve curated a list of what we think are some of the most active and productive conversations online.
EducationWeek’s Forums
Those subscribed to EdWeek’s education-oriented newspaper enjoy access to a variety of online forums, in which members post interesting information or pose a dilemma for a crowdsourced solution. The forums are divided into various topics (“Ask a Question,” “Professional Development,” and “Teaching Profession,” to name a few), and people are generally welcoming and supportive of even the most basic of questions. Responses can be a bit slow, but they’re worth bookmarking for future reference.
Online Hashtags to Follow
There are literally dozens—if not hundreds—of “hashtags” for online conversations about education. People wanting to talk about certain topics “tag” their posts or updates with a specific hashtag phrase, and anyone who searches that hashtag will be able to find, follow, and contribute to the conversations that result.
Some hashtag conversations, like #IWishMyTeacherKnew, are popular for a short time while they’re still novel. Others—like the ones we’re about to list—stand the test of time, generating insightful conversations and resources for those who use them.
- #EdChat—good for general topics in education and the latest news across all segments of the industry, from preschool to higher ed
- #BYOD—stands for “Bring Your Own Device,” good source of BYOD news and best practices
- #EdTech—similar to #BYOD, talks about new technologies especially developed for education
- #k12—specifically for conversations about lower, middle, and upper school
- #EarlyEd, #ElemChat, #MiddleSchool, #HighSchool—all school-specific hashtags concerning that particular demographic of students
- #ISMINC,#ISMINCinsurance, #ISMINCfast—all of the best private-independent school news worth writing about. e-Letter articles (like the one you’re reading now!) often feature on our hashtag, as well as information about our professional development opportunities. (Stay tuned to #ISMINCsi15 to follow the latest developments surrounding this year’s Summer Institute workshop series!)
You can type a hashtag into your favorite search engine, and a list of recent entries across multiple social media platforms should appear in the results. Twitter makes the most use of hashtags, though, so you might be better served by going directly to that platform.
LinkedIn’s “Education” Pulse Channel
With the introduction of an article-aggregate program (“Pulse”) to the website, LinkedIn’s Education “channel” is hoppin’ with almost 2.5 million subscriber “followers” and hundreds of new articles posted by site members every day. Topics range from K-12 strategies and higher ed news, to online learning and guesses about future educational paradigms. Private-independent school faculty and staff have been making a mark in this space, too, so it’s worth taking the time to find article contributors worth following for future insights—or you could write your own posts!
ISM’s e-Lists
Okay, okay, it’s a little self-promotional, but many of our email-based e-Lists generate great responses to common (and not-so-common) questions that only fellow private-independent school administrators could understand and answer. They’re typically segmented by position, so you’ve got peers replying to peers—and all via email that isn’t blocked by website filters, unlike “regular” social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
Have a favorite online education-oriented forum or hashtag that we missed? Share it in the comment section!
Additional ISM resources:
Private School News Vol. 12 No. 6 Digital Citizenship: Netiquette in Education
ISM Monthly Update for Division Heads Vol. 9 No. 4 For Teachers on Twitter: Hashtags to Follow the Conversation
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 35 No. 1 Faculty and Staff Use of Social Media: Sample Policy
