1. Examine Your School Culture

When setting out on this journey, it is important to understand the prevailing beliefs about social media in your community.

• How are social media products currently being used by students? By teachers? By administrators and parents? How can they be leveraged for better communication?
• What are the fears around social media in school?
• Are there any "bright spots" where social media is already being used successfully?

• Social Media and Two-Way Communication (Connected Principals): Make the case for integrating social media into your school community.
• Web 2.0 as a Force for School Transformation: A Tale of Six Distric... (Consortium for School Networking (CoSN)): This executive summary can help you discover what other schools are doing.
• Is Social Media Right for Your District? (Sungard: K-12 Education Blog): This blog shares questions for educational leaders considering social media for their districts.
• How Schools Are Using Social Media -- Infographic (SocialTimes): Get statistics on classroom use and professional development.
• Schools Use Social Media to Communicate With Students, Parents (Tulsa World): A case study on how one district in Texas uses social media.
• Ten Ways Schools Are Using Social Media Effectively (eSchool News): Educators from across the country share how they use social media.

2. Organize a Team

This team should include educators who use social media in the classroom and those who do not. A district that I worked with recently chose to have a teacher and administrative representative from each grade level in the district, along with their heads of instruction and technology, school attorney, and two student representatives. You have to find a combination that works.

This team should be open and transparent in all their conversations and decision making, and be clear about their shared goal. Establish a website or webpage for the posting of notes, resources, and minutes from the meetings.

• Does everyone on the team share the same goal?
• Is everyone committed to transparency?
• What is your time frame?

• Making the Case for Social Media in Schools (Edutopia): This blog shares specific reasons for using social media in schools.
• Social Media and Peer Learning (UC Berkeley School of Information): Howard Rheingold, a leading authority on the use of social media in schools, writes about why students should have access to these resources.
• Five Steps to Build a Social Media Team (Social Media Today): This site is for businesses, but the steps described here can help you create your school team.