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School division tries social media

Follow Pembina Trails on Facebook, Twitter

By: Nick Martin

Posted: 01/14/2011 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Holy Mark Zuckerberg, dude, do you Like-thumbs-up Pembina Trails School Division on Facebook, LOL?

The division in southwest Winnipeg believes it's the first in Manitoba to use both Facebook and Twitter to communicate.

"The board brought up the idea" and a committee quickly concluded that social media were useful tools to reach more people with the division's messages, said superintendent Lawrence Lussier.

"There's no denying social media are prevalent," says communications director Dale Burgos, who handles both the Facebook and Twitter accounts.

There are differences between the division's sites and typical personal sites, Burgos explained -- you can't be a friend of Pembina Trails, and you can't tag photos the division posts. But you don't need to be on Facebook to check out the PTSD wall, profile and photos.

There will be oodles of information.

First, you go to the division's website, www.pembinatrails.ca/. On the right-hand side of the home page, you can read the two most recent tweets and sign up for Twitter updates. Same place, you can click on the link to Pembina Trails' Facebook site.

Once that pops up, read away.

If you wish, up at the top there's a Like link with a picture of an upraised thumb -- click there, and every new message that Burgos posts will be relayed to your own Facebook page.

Cool, eh?

"We can update it directly from Twitter," said Burgos, who's fluent in technical language but is making the communications tool accessible to those of us not born into a tweet-and-text technological world.

Burgos said he could be at a school and immediately post an update about an award or an assembly.

It can be used as another means of alerting students and parents to a weather-related cancellation, Lussier said. Parents and media could be alerted to lockdowns. Major issues at the school board will be covered on the sites.

"Where we want everyone to know what's going on, Twitter is a great tool," Burgos said.

Featured on the division's Facebook page now is national recognition for École St. Avila School crossing guard Doris Hisco as Canada's favourite crossing guard.

It's up to schools to contact the division to publicize events, Lussier said, and only Burgos can post on the Facebook and Twitter sites.

Lussier pointed out that Facebook is among many sites locked out from school-based computers. Students and teachers using school computers can access the division's website to read Pembina Trails' Facebook and Twitter pages, but can't use them to log in to their own or other Facebook accounts.

Anyone reading the Facebook page can choose to "like" individual posts, but their names will not appear. And they can post comments, though the system will instantly alert Burgos, who can check and judge whether the comment is appropriate under division policies.

"Trust me, we will delete it" if it's inappropriate, Lussier chuckled.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 14, 2011 B1

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