Blog 6: Social Media in School Library Instruction, Communication, and Advocacy

Hello everyone!

Today’s post focuses on creating a social media account for the school library media center and how I plan to use this account for collaboration / instruction, communication, and advocacy in the future.  Since I am not a working school librarian, I chose to create an account for a hypothetical school library media center.  My hypothetical school is Pleasantville Elementary School which serves kindergarten through 5th grade.  The mascot is the Wise Owl.  

Creating the Account

I was on the fence about Facebook vs. Instagram.  After reading through Dr. Green’s presentation, my first thought was to use Facebook since it is widely used by grandparents and parents.  I ended up changing my mind simply due to Facebook’s requirements to link a business page with a personal account.  I had gone through the process of creating a “Fakebook” by using a combination of my hypothetical school’s name as my first and last name, but then after researching further I found that Facebook weeds and deletes accounts that are not linked to a real person.  I got worried that my Fakebook and therefore my project would get deleted, so I switched to Instagram because it is also used by parents and Instagram does allow the creation of business pages not linked to a personal account.   

I explored social media trends in my district by searching on both Facebook and Instagram.  Almost all of the schools have a presence on both but I did notice that there is generally one school level Facebook page and the media center / clubs / organizations, etc.… use Instagram. This holds true in my district regardless of grade level.  These factors solidified my decision to go with Instagram. 

All I needed to get started on Instagram was an email account so I created a Gmail account to go with my hypothetical library.  I then created an account and username.

Above:  Creating the account

Below:  Brand new account with no posts

I created the first post, the logo / profile picture using Canva.  I am just learning how to use Canva so I am not great at it, but it is a lot of fun and seems like a great resource for creating all kinds of media.  Canva has lots of neat social media templates which really takes the guesswork out of sizing.  

PES Library Logo Created from Canva Template 

I went through several different versions of my logo before I settled on this. I used a template in Canva and deleted everything but the owl. I added a background of books on a library shelf and made the background around 45% transparent. I added the picture of the open book below him to replace the branch he sits on in the original template. The name of my hypothetical school is Pleasantville Elementary School, but there was no way that the mascot plus Pleasantville Elementary School Library Media Center was going to fit in an Instagram profile picture so I settled on PES Library. The full name of the hypothetical schools referenced elsewhere and in the account username so I figured it is probably okay.

PES Library "Banner" for Instagram

Since Instagram does not have a banner like Facebook, I created a welcome post instead to serve that purpose. I made the post in Canva using the same template. I changed the location of the text and added some book graphics (also from Canva).

I think that if we are using social media it is important to make sure content is well formatted for both a desktop and mobile site, so I checked to make sure it was searchable on my phone app and checked it out to see how it looked on the mobile version.

Mobile Screenshots:

 

Desktop Screenshot

 

That's pretty much all I've got on the Instagram for now 

How I Plan to Use Instagram in Instruction/Collaboration, Communication, & Advocacy

I would use this tool for sharing student work, events that are going on in the media center, book reviews, and resources.  Since this page is for an elementary school, most of the content will be directed toward sharing what is going on at school with parents and caregivers and providing them with resources they can enjoy with their students.  I would also use an app like Link Tree to connect the Instagram account to the media center’s website, school website, and other social media accounts run by the media center.  

Instruction and Collaboration

Social media is an amazing tool for collaboration and instruction.  Elementary school students may be too young to use social media, but it is a great place for educators to gather inspiration for lessons, see what other educators are doing, and showcase what is going on around the school.  Many classroom teachers would love to have their lessons and student work shared on social media, but they simply do not have the time or resources to do this.  I would collaborate with other teachers by showcasing what is happening in a different classroom every week.  This could be done using Instagram stories, posts, and more.  

I love the idea in Dr. Green’s presentation of an “Instagram takeover” and although the younger set in an elementary school would not be able to do this, I believe that the 4th and 5th graders could create the content with parental permission and adult supervision.  Stories are also very easy to record and upload to YouTube, so the class takeovers could be played on the smartboard.

Dr. Green also suggests a logo contest which is something that would be enjoyed by all students in the school regardless of grade level.  I would also love to collaborate with teachers by having students write book reviews and then sharing those book reviews in a post.  

In the podcast 5 Ideas to Tap Social Media to Enhance PD and Student Learning they discuss how educators and librarians can use hashtags to connect with others in their field and gather new ideas and inspiration.  Although they mention Twitter for this, hashtags also work in Instagram so I would definitely make sure to include them in my posts so I can connect with other school librarians.  

Communication

Although I don’t think that any platform of social media should be the sole communication mechanism for a school, Instagram is a great place to share updates and help administrators push out communications. The more places a message can go out, the more likely parents / guardians are to receive it.  For example, when Federal Cards go out the media center could put an update on their Instagram reminding parents about the fact they are due back on XYZ date.  Although this isn’t necessarily related to the media center, it is an example of how we can communicate with parents and collaborate with our admin / other teachers.  

I would also use the Instagram account to share posts and stories about the media center’s upcoming events, student work, and book reviews / recommendations.  I personally love to see what is going on at my children’s school.  I love opening social media at lunch and seeing updates and sometimes photos.  You have to be careful with the photo part and be sure to check to make sure that the parents / guardians haven’t declined the media release / photo release, but as long as you are diligent about checking this it can be a lot of fun to feature readers of the week and student activities online.  

Advocacy

Dr. Green’s slide on Advocacy for each social media platform is so helpful.  I love the idea of making the media center Instagram a positive place that promotes digital citizenship, positivity, and sharing cool things with parents.

I would definitely use her idea of shoutouts.  This is a really simple way to make people feel seen and recognize accomplishments.  I would also use it to interact with parents / followers in a positive way.  The more that people feel like they are a part of the school community the better off the school will be.  A well managed social media account sets the tone that we are all on the same team and we are all here to advocate for our students and to create a positive learning experience for them.  By creating social media accounts and sharing pictures, we make the library more visible (Wilson, 2017).  A library that is visible, connected with stakeholders, and involved in collaborating with others is a library that is seen as valuable.  We have to demonstrate our value to all stakeholders in order to secure the future of our libraries especially when budgetary constraints come up.  Stakeholders that are involved are more likely to advocate alongside us for the school library. 

Final Thoughts

Thanks for sticking with me through I know this was sort of a lengthy post! If you would like to follow my hypothetical school account please do! I will follow yours back. I am new to Canva so any critiques or guidance is very welcome!

Account: @pleasantvilleelementarylibrary

For those of you that currently work in a school that uses Facebook as a platform I am curious - who is the account administrator?  What happens if that person leaves the school?  Is there one person that runs all the social media or do different areas such as the media center / clubs have their own pages?  Let me know in the comments, if you don’t mind.  I know Facebook is a very popular platform so I would love to know workarounds on this for the future.  In Connected Librarians Nikki Robertson suggests that we create separate accounts for school, work, etc. which I do agree with however it still doesn’t solve the issue of who owns the Facebook account for the library, club, school, etc.  Even if the librarian creates a work account, the library page would still be tied to that user, correct?  Again, I am totally not knocking Facebook at all, I love the platform.  I just want to know how everyone works around this problem.  

References

Davis, V.  (Host). (2018, August 17). 5 ideas to tap social media to enhance pd and student learning (No. 340 [Audio podcast episode]. In 10 minute teacher podcast with cool cat teacher. http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2018/08/5-ideas-to-tap-social-media-to-enhance.html

Green, L.S. (2020, December 3). SLIS 761 Harnessing the Power of Social Media to Advocate for the School Library [PowerPoint slides]. School of Information Science, University of South Carolina. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1rswnwL_QA16SjO3gE5KzLH26OeReTFxdJkJ3_xz8uYk/edit?usp=sharing

Robertson, N. D. (2017). Connected librarians : Tap social media to enhance professional development and student learning. International Society for Technology in Education.

Wilson, J. (2017, December). Make Your Library More Visible. School Library Journal, 16-19.