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End User social networking

Facebook now defacto site concerning school closures

Following this morning’s post regarding the use of Facebook to announce school closures due to bad weather a huge proportion of the UK’s scholastic community has taken my advice.

There is now a group on Facebook called “Its far too dangerouse for colleges and schools to be open on the 6/1/2010 “, currently with 31,795 fans, and it can only have been created today!  Of course the poor spelling in the name this group is clear evidence that the schools need to stay open tomorrow – even longer than normal perhaps.  They can all huddle together in the English teacher’s form room and larn 🙂

Good luck to them – anyone for a snowball fight?

Categories
End User social networking

Facebook is the latest tool for announcing school closures

Friend Lindsey Annison commented today on Facebook that both her kids’ schools were shut today due to heavy snow. Their websites , however, had fallen over and were not accessible to view the announcements. 

It didn’t stop the kids finding out though as the news spread like wildfire on Facebook and via SMS. Seems to me that every school should have a Facebook Group controlled by the staff even if it is just an intranet/forum. It would grow content far more quickly than a traditional school website (if there is such a thing) that depends on the good offices of an enthusiastic member of staff to maintain and update.

Last year my wife, who is a supply teacher, struggled for an hour through the snow to a school only to receive a text message announcing its closure just as she got there! She doesn’t use Facebook though :-).

Readers living outside the UK will perhaps struggle to understand these problems – this country grinds to a halt the minute the first snowflake hits the pavement. Two snowflakes almost constitutes a snowstorm and kids all over get ready to build snowmen.   Most schools in Lincolnshire are open today, much to the extreme disappointment of the Davies clan.