What Employers Can Learn About Social Media in the Workplace from a High School Experiment | ad-ition digital strategies that work
What Employers Can Learn About Social Media in the Workplace from a High School Experiment
October 21st, 2011, In Social Media, by Beverly Crandon
To this day, we still encounter employers who question the use of social networks, while at work. We often refer them to tips and tricks on how they can at least divert some of that employees affinity to Twitter or Facebook, to benefit the company and its marketing and branding goals. Yet, the trepidation continues. Given this, we’re hoping that by sharing this story about Burton High, in San Francisco, will help to put things in perspective.
We are all well aware that cell phones are not allowed in schools, for obvious reasons, so imagine Burton High 11th and 12th grader’s surprise, when they were asked to do an assignment using Twitter. The focus of the assignment was to get the students thinking about 9/11 and its effect on America and the world in general. Now their teacher, Wendy Berkelman, could have asked them to write a paper, which in many cases would have just touched the surface of their real feelings and thoughts, as the other rules and regulations around essay writing would have taken precedence. At Burton High, the students were asked to Tweet what they remembered about 9/11. The fact that they were asked to do an assignment on a tool they love and use regularly in their lives outside of school, stepped up the participation and the discussion around their classmates thoughts on the historical moment. The feedback from the students themselves, framed their resulting passion around the assignment:
“I think that using Twitter to do an assignment is maybe the coolest assignment in school,” said Jason Wong. “I like how we are able to do this through the phone and people can see our thoughts.”
“I learned about 9/11 that many of my peers were too young to understand about the situations and they were really clueless about it,” said Japhet Sabucdalao. “I think it really helped my experience because it made be see different ways of things, like different perspectives of people during 9/11.”
“What I learned is that everybody has different ways of reacting about this situation and it’s really sad that all these beloved ones lost their lives during 9/11,” she said. “This helped me understand more about what I don’t know and also, I want to learn more about it for references in the future.”
It’s clear that handling this assignment any other way would not have provoked the conversation and the peer to peer learning that this did. Not only was the class able to discuss the social issues around 9/11, but it also provided a perspective on media and communications.
So, case in point – taking a tool that someone is passionate about and allowing them to use it to spread your message or a strategically designed intent, could result in powerful things.
Header image courtesy of: noraelisabethphotos
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