On June 18th I will be speaking at EdExec live about social media. My talk is entitled “Getting Savvy With Social Media”.

To help promote my talk I wrote a short blog post on social media, giving a taste of what my talk will be about. You can have a read below.

Head over to the EdExec live website to read the original post and click HERE for tickets.

Using social media is a scary prospect for many schools and teachers. There are a lot of schools who don’t fully understand social media and what a powerful tool it can be for teaching and learning as well as for marketing.  It’s hard to relate to social media if you don’t use it yourself which is why it’s so important to have an expert in your school. This expert can help train members of staff, write an expectable use policy as well as mange and lead you social media strategy.

There are a number of options when considering social media, which include Facebook, Google+, YouTube and Pinterest, but my personal favourite would be Twitter. It’s easy to understand and manage; it’s uncomplicated and gives short bursts of teaching and learning as well as marketing.

Using social media enables schools to broadcast information including achievements, open days, school trips, sporting results and anything else that promotes the school in a positive way. This is fantastic not only for current students and parents but for prospective parents too.

Teaching and learning can also benefit greatly from the use of social media. Having used Twitter and Facebook for these purposes I’ve really been able to see the value of it. Not only is this great for students and teachers but it shows current and prospective parents the impressive things that departments are doing.

When using social media, schools need to be aware of some of the pitfalls. Common mistakes are tweeting from a work account instead of a personal account by mistake, posting images of students whose parent have requested not to be photographed, spelling mistakes, sharing links to articles that have not been checked and sharing incorrect information.

Matt Britland is director of ICT at The Lady Eleanor Holles School. He’s also an ed tech consultant, an avid tweeter and blogs for the Guardian. If you want to learn more about social media, don’t miss Matt’s seminar at EdExec LIVE 2014.