Review the required resources identified for this week on the use of communication and social media guides. Locate and read the posted communication and social media guidelines for your local school system (usually found on the district web site and may be called Internet Policies, or Acceptable Use Guides). Does your school system utilize social media such as supporting an official Facebook page, Twitter account, or an email/text messaging system?
 

Write a short narrative on what you see as the most common uses of social media in your community and include the following:

• What      efforts do you see by area businesses and community groups to ‘brand’      themselves using social media?
• Does      this fit with Pew Research you did in Week One?
• Do      you feel that the development of a social media presence would help or      hinder your initiative or efforts to strengthen and ‘brand’ programs in      your community? Why?

Develop a communication guide document that supports you and your community’s position on social media. Be sure to consider the recommendations for designing with flexibility. Also, be sure to support your guidelines with outside sources and include references written in APA format. Attach or link your document to your initial post.

See attached document for full work assignment

Week 5 Discussion 1 Communications Guide

Review the required resources identified for this week on the use of communication and social media guides. Locate and read the posted communication and social media guidelines for your local school system (usually found on the district web site and may be called Internet Policies, or Acceptable Use Guides). Does your school system utilize social media such as supporting an official Facebook page, Twitter account, or an email/text messaging system?
Write a short narrative on what you see as the most common uses of social media in your community and include the following:

· What efforts do you see by area businesses and community groups to ‘brand’ themselves using social media?

· Does this fit with Pew Research you did in Week One?

· Do you feel that the development of a social media presence would help or hinder your initiative or efforts to strengthen and ‘brand’ programs in your community? Why?

Develop a communication guide document that supports you and your community’s position on social media. Be sure to consider the recommendations for designing with flexibility. Also, be sure to support your guidelines with outside sources and include references written in APA format. Attach or link your document to your initial post.
Guided Response: Critically respond to at least two peers, asking for clarification where needed and making suggestions for improvement in their document. Be sure to review your peers’ responses to your initial posting and guidelines. Ask for clarification and follow up with suggestions. After reviewing your peers suggestions and comments, make any necessary changes. Your final draft of the document will be submitted as part of your final project.

Instructor Guidance
Week 5

Welcome to Week 5 of our class. This week we turn our attention to a couple of new topics. One of the important topics for our initiatives in the community is branding. This means that we have to consider how we market ourselves or make others of aware of what we’re trying to do. We’ll talk some about social media and how it can be used to help brand our program. Another big topic for the week is to analyze ways that programs are evaluated. It is important to know if a program is successful, and if so, to what extent. Using an established method of evaluation allows us to compare our program to others that already exist. Also this week, we continue the work on creating our programs for our school or community.
In the first discussion for this week, you will discuss building a communication guide to help brand your program. If you look at the posted requirements for the discussion, you’ll see that you have to take a look at existing community groups and businesses to see how they are using social media. Perhaps your school or business or current place of employment uses Facebook or Twitter or some other way of communicating to its constituents quickly. If you find that communities in your program are not using social do you think they should in order to help strengthen their program? You will create a communication guide document that supports your community’s position on social media and how (if) it should be used. If you are not a regular user of social media, you probably at least can recognize symbols of social media brands themselves. Check out the picture below just to see some of the social media you may want to consider for this project. Also, check out the picture of the social media iceberg. This gives you a hint of how much work has to go into planning or branding by social media before anything is published.
The assignment this week is an important piece of the creation of your initiative. You are going to identify and describe how you will evaluate the success of your program. You will identify how you determine success, how you will celebrate success, and how you will sustain your initiative’s success. Please be sure to review specifically the resources listed from the Search Institute. The resources listed by Berkas and Hong is also valuable for this assignment. Another powerful Ted Talk on this topic may be seen at: 

Building Brand – The Power of Social Media: Daryl D’Souza at TEDxRyersonU (Links to an external site.)

. This is a more recent example and discussion of branding by social media. You will find it helpful.

Reference

D’Souza, D. (2013, April 10). 
Building Brand – The Power of Social Media: Daryl D’Souza at TEDxRyersonU (Links to an external site.)
[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAwjeu4Y5h4.

Required Resources

Read from your text, 

Assets in action: A handbook for making communities better places to grow up

:

Review Chapter 7 – Over the Long Haul: Sustaining Your Initiative

Tip Sheet #14

Tip Sheet #15

Berkas, T.H. & Hong, K.L. (2000).

First steps in evaluation: Basic tools for asset-building initiatives (Links to an external site.)

. Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/830272/FIRST_STEPS_IN_EVALUATION

This is an overview of established methods for program evaluation.

Ferriter, B. (2011).

Communicating and connecting with social media (Links to an external site.)

. Retrieved from http://issuu.com/mm905/docs/ccwsm_look-inside/6

A teacher and strong advocate for the use of social media to promote his school, teachers, and students, discusses the current successful use of social media by community members and advocates for its use in education.

Ferriter, B. (2010).

Social media in education resources posted (Links to an external site.)

. Retrieved from http://www.teachingquality.org/content/social-media-education-resources-posted

A professional author, speaker, and educator provides resources for using social media in education to support all stakeholders.

Ferriter, B., Sheninger, E., & Ramsden, J. (2010).

Social media in schools (Links to an external site.)

. Retrieved from http://digitallyspeaking.pbworks.com/w/page/28489273/Social%20Media%20in%20Schools

This wiki includes a collection of resources for Social Media in Schools.

Grey, B. (2010).

Plan to communicate (Links to an external site.)

. The Edge of Tomorrow. Retrieved from http://bengrey.com/blog/2010/12/plan-to-communicate/

This blog discusses the District 123 Communications Plan and reflections.

Search Institute. (n.d.).

What’s working? Tools for evaluating your mentoring program (Links to an external site.)

. Retrieved from http://www.searchinstitutepress.org/free_downloads/Whats_Working_Eval_Toolkit

This free download is an overview of established methods for program evaluation. Note: To obtain this free e-product, you will need to enter basic personal information in order to move forward with the download.

Sheringer, E. (2011).

The questions I ask (Links to an external site.)

. A Principal’s Reflections. Retrieved from http://esheninger.blogspot.com/2011/11/questions-i-ask.html

A principal, author, and strong advocate for the use of social media to promote his school, teachers, and students asks questions of those who may hesitate to embrace social media.