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Social media experts, Jonny Ross Consultancy, advise on the benefits of social media for schools

Before we delve into a debate on the opportunities and risks of social media in education, let me share with you an example of how just one tweet paid for a school’s entire annual marketing budget.

John Buskell is a social media expert who manages a Twitter account for a senior high school in Sweden. The school uses social media to engage with kids from nearby junior highs before they move up to seniors. Buskell set up Twitter alerts for mentions about the local junior highs, so he was notified when a girl tweeted “I hate Engelska Skolan junior high”. He replied to the tweet on behalf of the high school with a “Hang in there.” The girl tweeted back, “Wow, you’re on Twitter?” and she started checking out the school. She came along to the open house and he talked to her, as part of the marketing he was doing for the school. The girl ended up choosing the school for her three-year A-level program. As each student brings from the local government around £9000 (equivalent) per year, that one tweet effectively paid for the school’s marketing budget that year.

When I spoke at the AMDIS conference on the use of social media in schools, I asked delegates to tell me about their concerns. Negative comments, legal compliance, hacking and cyber bullying all came up as potential risks that people were concerned about. But, like school trips, social media offers hugely valuable learning opportunities and experiences.

Avoidance doesn’t remove the risks (kids will try things out anyway), it just means young people don’t learn to manage risks online, and you don’t get chance to influence the outcomes. Like school trips, risks can be mitigated to either reduce the chance of them happening or to reduce their impact. Read more about managing online risks in schools here.

I strongly believe (and this is supported by the many success stories) that there are huge potential benefits to schools in engaging with social media, and these far outweigh any risks.

What are the benefits of using social media in schools?

(1) Increase students’ employability

Over half of employers now screen candidates on social media [research by CareerBuilder], and many young people are missing out on jobs because of inappropriate content about themselves online. By educating students on the appropriate use of social media, you can increase their employment prospects. This includes explaining privacy settings for different platforms, what they should never share on social media, and what they can do to show their suitability for a role, e.g. writing a blog on their chosen topic.

(2) Parent/student engagement and reaching new audiences

Without interest from parents and students within the catchment area, schools would cease to exist. Local community engagement is vital. Students often make decisions about college or sixth form themselves, and social media can be the perfect way to reach them – and potential new students. For example, if you send out a tweet that is then favourited by one of your followers, you will then automatically become visible to all of their followers, and so on. Social media engagement therefore increases your visibility (locally and nationally) and exposes you new audiences.

(3) Improved communication with stakeholders

Social media allows news, information and updates to be quickly and cost effectively broadcast to both parents and students. For example: “the school is closed due to bad weather” can be sent out as one message to thousands of people, saving the time and the expense of letters and phone calls.

Social media allows schools to communicate in a much more efficient, effective and time sensitive manner. By having a profile on different social media platforms, stakeholders can communicate with your school whenever, wherever and however best suits them.

(4) Ability to monitor and manage your school's reputation

Many schools cite fear of negative comments and reputation damage as a reason to avoid social media. But people will always talk about you online whether you’re there or not. So by being “in the room”, you can influence the outcome of those conversations positively. You can set up alerts on social media so you are notified when people talk about you online, giving you the opportunity to correct misinformation and “nip in the bud” any negative discussions.

The only way to manage your online reputation is to have an online presence. Having an online profile that parents, teachers and students can communicate with gives you the opportunity to improve relations and show that you can deal with issues quickly and proactively.

(5) Effective targeting on different social media platforms

Which social media platform should we be on? This is a common question we are asked when working with schools on their social media presence. Choosing the right platform(s) and sharing the right kind of content can help you effectively target different stakeholder groups for better results.

The platforms you decide to use should depend on who you want to engage with, and where those people are. For example, you could use Facebook to engage with parents (and share information about school news and successes) and for business engagement (and share information about venue hire and sponsorship opportunities).

As a general rule of thumb, it is much better to create a profile on one or two platforms and ensure that communication and engagement is regular and constant than to create four or five platforms and quickly realise that you do not have the capacity to maintain such platforms.

If this blog post has interested you, then make sure you keep your eyes peeled for our FREE 'Top 10 tips on how to use social media for schools' e-guide.

Whether you are a headmaster, a governor, a teacher or even a parent, this downloadable PDF document will provide you with 10 simple ways to use social media in order to improve your school's visibility and credibility.

New report predicts future technology trends among children and young people

The dominance of watching a television set as a childhood pastime is likely to end within the next two years - with youngsters likely to be spending more time online for the first time ever, according to the new CHILDWISE ‘Connected Kids’ report.

Future generations of children are also more likely to watch content, such as TV programmes, on a tablet, or even a phablet (a tablet-style mobile phone) than they are a traditional television set, laptop or PC.

Soon children will expect to stay connected at all times – everywhere and anywhere. This is likely to influence how willing they are to participate in trips out and family holidays.

CHILDWISE’s ‘Connected Kids’ analyses 20 years of annual survey data from children and young people across the UK. It shows the progression of technologies, ownership and usage, and predicts how they might change into the future.

“This is the first time we have analysed data from the last 20 years of the annual CHILDWISE Monitor surveys to predict the progression of technologies and their usage,” says CHILDWISE researcher Matthew Nevard.

“This groundbreaking report uses the wealth of historic data we have on children’s media usage to identify trends and theorise how children’s media engagement is likely to develop over the next few year,” adds Matthew.

CHILDWISE Trendlines future predictions

Tablet ownership will continue to increase, with the potential to reach similar levels to mobile ownership in the next few years.

Ownership of laptops and PCs is likely to fall.

Screen time will level out. As time spent using the internet and mobiles increases gradually, time spent watching television on a traditional set is declining. More on demand and binge viewing on tablets and laptops.

Decline in the proportion of children with TV sets in their bedroom, from around 80% of 7-16s in 2004 to 60% in 2014. Children and young people can now watch content in their own room on other devices, such as laptops and tablets. This trend is set to continue over the next few years.

Children will expect to be able to access the internet anywhere and everywhere - ability to access their online lives may even influence their willingness to participate in family holidays and trips out.

The use of portable devices makes it more difficult for parents to regulate what their children are accessing on the internet. Therefore, protecting children from inappropriate content online is set to be a continuing issue going forward.

For the first time children could spend more hours online than watching television. The wealth of content available online and popularity of YouTube is drawing young people to the internet over linear TV viewing.

Traditional social networks to decline steadily in popularity with photo and video sharing sites increasingly coming out as favourites among young people.

Mobiles to become a ‘hub’ device, used to coordinate a variety of other technological devices. It is likely that children and young people will use their mobiles to interact with the television, either indirectly through second-screen viewing or as a controller.

Apps such as YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat to continue to be popular. Facebook is still widely used but its popularity is declining in favour of newer experiences.

In the next two years

Children’s internet use is likely to overshadow the television. TV viewing on traditional sets continues to decline at a steady rate, whilst hours spent online will increase. Children expect to choose the content they engage with and on-demand services like Netflix will be the norm.

In the next five years

Likely convergence of technology currently in use. Some children may choose ‘phablets’ (tablet-like phones) instead of the current popular combination of phone and tablet/laptop. Televisions likely to be increasingly internet-connected, allowing streaming of content from portable devices to the big screen. Cloud technology means children will expect to access their files and information anywhere and on any device.

In the next 10 years

Children growing up will have little understanding of a world without the internet. Having appliances which cannot be controlled using a smartphone or some kind of online dashboard may be seen as outdated, or at least increasingly rare. Wearable technology likely to have progressed significantly by this point.

The CHILDWISE Monitor survey is a comprehensive annual research study with children and young people across the UK. The study looks at children’s media consumption and purchasing behaviour, and at aspects of their wider life.

tootoot, partnered with Barclays, has received funding to provide every school in the UK with the tootoot safeguarding platform and application for FREE!

Initially being rolled at in the North West, Regional schools commissioner, Paul Smith, is driving the roll out of a new safeguarding and prevention platform and app, tootoot, across all primary schools, secondary schools colleges and Universities in the UK, in an effort to combat all forms of bullying and safeguarding issues.

The initiative, which is also supported by actor Will Mellor, will provide students with an online platform to securely and anonymously report any incidents directly to their place of learning.

Paul Smith commented: “Having measures in place to prevent all forms of bullying, and a clear process for reporting incidents, is incredibly important for the safety of vulnerable students. Tootoot is an effective tool to help in these situations and, by giving 4,500 places of learning and over 1 million students access to this platform, we will have a much better idea of the scale of problems and we will hopefully see a significant reduction in the number of cases.”

Tootoot is available 24/7, 365 days a year and is six times more effective than face-to-face reporting. It is used to support the education system by raising awareness of safeguarding issues and improving the overall learning environment for young people across the whole of the UK. The platform and app, developed with the support of Barclay's, will also help to promote equality, support diversity and increase confidence in school pupils and college students across the regions.

Tootoot developer Michael Brennan, said: “Modern bullying comes in many different shapes and sizes. But whatever its form, it is a subject that is often very difficult to talk about if you become a victim. That’s why I developed tootoot, and by rolling it out to all schools it will give a huge number of young people the confidence to report what is happening to them.”

To date tootoot has already helped over 55,000 students have a voice to speak up in over 100 schools, in less than 6 month, across the globe.

Tootoot has also become an educational lead for places of learning, local authorities and MAT’s with The Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015 and their Prevent Strategies. The CTSA 2015 states local authorities have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.

tootoot for students

The first safeguarding platform and app, developed in partnership with Barclays used in primary schools, secondary schools, colleges, and universities, which allows students to safely report any worries and incidents of bullying, cyber bullying, racism, extremism, radicalisation, sexism, mental health and homophobic issues directly to their place of learning.

tootoot for staff

Recording safeguarding incidents is of the utmost importance for educational institutions, which is why we’ve made it better. We developed tootoot with the help of safeguarding officers across the country, drawing upon hundreds of years of collective experience and expertise to ensure that the recording, handling and tracking of incidents is easier than ever before. That’s right, no more paperwork!

tootoot for senior leadership

With the click of a button, tootoot’s real-time dashboard collects, analyses and creates detailed, easy to read reports instantly, anytime. No more wasting time hunting through filing cabinets hours before an Ofsted inspection, regulatory body visit, or governors and SLT meeting.

tootoot for parents

All parents worry about their children whether they’re at primary school or university. Many of the safeguarding officers and team members that developed tootoot are parents themselves and the safety of young learners and students are our highest priority. The parent feature within tootoot, allows parents to report their own concerns anonymously, directly to their child’s place of learning.

If you would like to sign up your school free today then click here or visit www.tootoot.co.uk to sign up or find out more.