Monday, May 04, 2009

If Oprah Can Do It...

This might just be my shortest blog post ever, but sometimes a good idea doesn't have to be complicated. At the San Gabriel Valley CUE Technology Fair last Saturday, Jen Wagner passed on this idea she heard from Hall Davidson. Now I'm passing it on to you. (Care to keep the thread going?)

If you're looking for a free way send a message blast out to parents, rather than pay for an expensive phone/text message system, why not do what they do at Forsyth County Schools in Georgia and use Twitter? Just create a Twitter account (FREE) for your school and encourage all parents to follow it. Parents can use a Twitter app on their computer or phone or set up their account to alert them via SMS text message whenever your office sends out a message.

Parents follow the school's Twitter updates, but the school does not follow or reply to anyone. It’s simply used as a way to broadcast events and emergencies.

I’m sure Twitter messages from your school would be much more useful and meaningful than those from Oprah or Ashton Kutcher.

Did I mention it’s free?

1 comment:

Coach Burk said...

A month ago or so I created a twitter account for my school. I have not taken it then next step to get parents to follow, although I have one parent who is following. I then embedded the feed into our school website, so the information automatically is updated there also. Side Note: The one parent who is on twitter and I talked about using twitter and twitpic for school trips. Every year our 8th grade class goes to DC. We can create a username for the trip and have students update and take pics. Negative note would be, we can't supervise what is put up.