Feedly Article #1

Feedly Article #1

Using @IFTTT For Better School Communications

This is an article dealing with a very prominent problem that is found in nearly school:  Communication between the school and the community.  This includes administrators, teachers, staff, students, parents, and every other person in the community.  Most administrators admit that communicating with the community is difficult at best and, more often than not, ineffective.  That is where the author of the article, Steven Anderson, comes in.  His job is to go around and help administrators rectify this situation.  Instead of trying to send letters or emails to parents (or others), post on blogs/Facebook, and other methods, Anderson propose using IFTTT.  If This, Then That.  It uses cause and effect.  If you post this, then that happens.  A person sets up a “recipe” to tell the site what happens in a situation and the site does the rest.  An example:  If the author is tagged in a photo, then IFTTT automatically sends a copy of the photo to a particular folder in a particular drop box.  IFTTT allows people to become a “walking PR machine.”  Administrators can spend a bit of time setting up the recipe, then it takes out all the major work when a message needs to get out.

I absolutely love this idea!  Think about it:  A teacher needs to update an assignment, but instead of emailing, tweeting, posting to Facebook, and even calling students, then hoping they got the message, a teacher can set up a recipe to do all that.  If an administrator wants to acknowledge a community of an accomplishment by the tennis team, there can be a recipe for that.  If a parent wants to alert other parents to something, there can be a recipe for that.  What about a teacher overhearing/seeing a wonderful act carried out by a student and snaps a photo on their phone?  (Or student sees the act)  That can be shared to everyone in a moment, instead of trying to find who to send it to so that the act is acknowledged in the appropriate manner.  As the article stated, things like this show the community what is happening in the walls of the school when most would not be able to be a part of it otherwise.  It creates even greater ties with the community which, in turn, creates greater support for the school and the students.  I would definitely utilize this to share with my students/parents, what is going on both in the class and in the halls.  Photos, messages, and stories that help uplift, that create a true sense of community.

I found this article through Blogging About The Web 2.0 Connected Classroom.  The article was written on April 9, 2015 by Steven Anderson.