“Keeping In Touch”-some thoughts, and links
Attended meeting of the Former Pupils’ Council this evening; one thing that I am interested in developing is how we can use “social networking” as a way of keeping in touch with former pupils. I think this may be a particularly good way of reaching the younger or “out of town” and overseas FPs: I can imagine Flickr Photoshare site being used to create online galleries of FP events, for example. You may be interested to see a sample I piloted at my former school, St Columba’s, where I created a folder on my Flickr account to showcase the annual FPs hockey and rugby match and various Pipe Band events. Some of the photos have been viewed several times, although I would like to see some comments, as this is where interaction and feedback takes place.
You can have unlimited storage space for about £15 a year.
Click here to see how one insitution, a business school, have used Flickr.
Also worth looking at is the Royal High School of Edinburgh Royal High’s blog, which gives a link to a photo gallery.
Finally I see some FP Rugby Clubs have set up blogs, see, at random: Saint Mary’s
Walcot Old Boys
The Americans are big on alumni reunions, see for example, chosen at random Mariner High School Class of 1976 blog , and how they have used it.
Spotted this through the edublogs feed. I am about to sponsor this service Your fps already make extensive use of -probably in order
Friends reunited
Myspace
Facebook
Depends on their age profile
Friends reunited older fps
Facebook -middle
Myspace current pupils and recent alumni
You need to creatively invade one of these don’t invent your own. All the best Joe
Thanks Joe, appreciate the feedback. I think, to some extent, it’s a matter of audience, and who you want to reach. There seems to me to be a gradation between the private and the public here, for example you can view a lot of Flickr pages and blogs without particular permissions, whereas Bebo and FaceBook have more restricted audiences, some can be accessed more easily than others. It might be you want to have “public facing” sites which showcase particular events, and which you hope some viewers may “stumble upon” ,whereas on other occasions you may wish to communicate with a smaller, more secure group, as in Bebo. Interstingly, at TeachMeet07, a large number of the participants were on FaceBook, which seems to have a big following among teachers.