Social Media as a Collaboration and Productivity Tool

It is so easy to focus on the negative aspects of social media, but we encourage you to look beyond those challenges and consider the ways that social media has changed communication, improved collaboration, and our own personal and professional learning. Social media technology is a transformative tool, one that is reshaping how students, teachers, and school leaders learn and work.

There is a whole set of social media tools that can be used to improve collaboration and productivity. Here are a few of our favorites.

Scheduling Meetings – Our favorite tool, because it’s free, is Doodle. You can use it to identify potential meeting times based on work schedules and then invite participants. It provides an easy-to-read report once people respond to the invitation.

Twitter Chats—Many schools and districts use twitter chats and hashtags to provide ongoing discussions about key topics or initiatives.

Enhancing Collaboration –A wiki is a combination of a website and a place to post, revise, and edit work. They are especially useful for working with groups. What’s most powerful is that a wiki allows members of a group to collaborate on planning and implementing projects without having to constantly meet. Membership in the wiki can be controlled and the wiki keeps a record of any changes made by members. Our favorite is Wikispaces. There is a free plan for K-12 schools that is free of ads.

Maintaining Meeting Records – We like Meeting Diary as a way to keep online records of meetings we’ve attended, along with the agenda and a summary of major decisions.