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http://openacademic.org
Being There: Outreach Using the Social Web
CASE Districts VII and VIIILas Vegas, 2007
http://openacademic.org
Before We Get Started
• This presentation available at: http://openacademic.org/news
• Links to resources at the end of the presentation
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A Cautionary Tale
http://www.sptimesphotos.com/blogs/classroom/
• “... I will just say this ... the lies, distortions and mean spiritedness of some - was not worth my time or worthy of this district …”
-- May 18, 2006
•Ouch! However…
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The Online Community Quandary
How open do you want to be?
Presence vs Reach
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What to do?
From http://hijinksensue.com/2007/11/29/robots-are-ev...fuel/
http://openacademic.org
Getting the Message Out
• The Mother Ship• You Them• Them You• You = Them
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The Mother Ship
• Your online presence• Central area for information
– Your content– Your domain – Your look/feel
• Starting point– And, ideally, the ending point
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Delivering Content
• A web page (aka old school)• Audio and Video (iTunes)• Image Sharing• Email• RSS• Text message
What gadgets are people using?
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You Them
• Blogs, Podcasts, Videocasts• Can be set up with limited ability to
comment• All content created by school staff• Unfamiliar terrain? Get a guide.
– Within existing sites, do you need to be there at all?
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You Them, part 2
• Don’t go there just to go there – Have a purpose– Make sure that your purpose dovetails
with your identity– Commit adequate resources to the
space
• You could end up like this.• Or worse.
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Them You
• Sites maintained by the school specifically for community members– These sites generally require people to
give you contact information – for example:• Register for events• Alumni Directory/Job Connection• Newsletters
• Please, not another FaceBook!
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You = Them
• Community participation in the online presence
• Invite Alumni/Students to create content– Broader involvement leads to more interesting
content, which spurs more involvement– Commenting/dialogue essential at this level– Can be as simple as a clean online version of
existing publications– No canned communities allowed
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The Mother Ship
• Who do people want to hear from?– Who has something to say?
• Newsletters/Photos/Podcasts/Video– What events are better for what
medium?– Judiciously shared content
• What can you give them that they can’t get anywhere else?
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Community Participation
• Doesn’t just happen.• Balance between level of polish and
frequency.• “Good” content trumps high
production values.
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Build a Pretty Frankenstein
• Phased rollout• Gadget friendly content• Clean, informative site directory• Use what you need, when you need it• A sloppy/poorly conceived online
presence is worse than nothing at all (ahem, Kaplan/Myspace)
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Young Frankenstein: Extending the Online Presence• OpenSocial, and other APIs
(Facebook, etc)– Leverage existing social networks
•Pros: People are already there; somebody will like it
•Cons: Requires specialized skills to deliver, and knowledge to know where to go.
• Twitter• UStream.tv
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Outside the Scope of This Presentation
• But still interesting.– Overlap between Social Networking sites– Comparison of users b/w FB and
MySpace, and where OpenSocial fits in the picture
– danah boyd on class and social networks– Yet another example of FB trampling
over its users
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Expectations Management
• Each school is different• Technology changes rapidly
– Faster than we can keep up– Don’t sweat it
• Flexibility is essential– You will learn more details about your
community; apply that knowledge effectively
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Implementation and Goals
• No matter how good it is, someone’s gonna hate it.
• Incremental gains – A more informed member is a more
connected member– Can’t identify with the school if they
have forgotten about it– More likely to give time/treasure/talent
to a known quantity
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Closing Thoughts
• These tools have the potential to make the school a more regular presence in the lives of community members.
• Fight the hype: evolutionary rather than revolutionary– Whatever. It’s different.
• The best infrastructure in the world is no substitute for a living institutional mission
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Resources – Web 2.0 Info
• Web 2.0– The classic definition– When the lawyers get involved
• Graphic on slide 2 created with tagcrowd
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Resources
• Video Sharing– http://www.teachertube.com– Ustream.tv
• RSS and Podcasts– This functionality is available through
most of the Open Source options listed here; this functionality is still absent from many of the larger proprietary apps.
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Resources – Content Reshuffle
• Content delivery– Automate creation of podcast feeds
(depending on your website software, this may not be necessary -- most open source platforms support this without requiring an outside provider)• http://feedburner.com
– Distribute through iTunes• http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/...
faq.html
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Resources – Email to SMS
• Mediawiki overview page– As described on Wikipedia, for most
plans, this functionality is already supported abd could be created via a mailing list.
• A google search can help track developments
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Resources -- Open Source Tools
• Blogging Platforms/Community Building– Drupal– Wordpress– Wordpress Multi-User– Mambo– Joomla!– Gallery (photo sharing)
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About this presentation
• This presentation is released under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial License.
Conditions for commercial use available here
• Prepared by Bill Fitzgerald at OpenAcademic– http://openacademic.org– Email: bill@openacademic.com
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