Word to the wise

I am a self-professed social media diva. I enjoy the ability to share information, to support others and to connect via social media. However, I also make ample use of my privacy settings. On my personal blog, I don't use my children's real names, and instead use fictional nicknames. I also assist others to increase their social media presence. On a recent webinar I was talking about some of the potential pitfalls of social media use and realized that I didn't have any pictorial examples.  So last night I went searching for some examples quickly found a half-dozen Facebook bloopers. 

As you can see I removed any personal information and blurred the photos to protect the innocent. The top one is just hilarious. The poster provides their name, the name of the main guest, the date, time and location and shares the post with EVERYONE--that little globe means anyone can see what has been posted to Facebook  And then there is the description!  This is a no, no for obvious reasons. There are a number of ways to avoid this problem. The original poster could have created a closed group, or a group private message or they could have created an event that required folks to private message the organizer for the location details. 

This one was found on a state department of health page. For some unknown reason State Department of Health pages are rife with these kinds of posts, or worse.  I've seen people post their phone numbers and Social Security #'s looking for a lost Medicaid card--a quick trip to their profile provides their address and birth date and a criminal has all they need to steal their identity! What surprised me was that this state page, and a few others I have found, respond to the posters using the newsfeed. It would be wise for this page, and others experiencing this type of problem, to periodically post a reminder to readers that they should use email or the private message function to share personal questions or concerns.  Additionally, the administrator should remove any posts that provide personal information.

This one is courtesy of a friend. The post was shared only with this friends friends, but that could still be a lot of people. As you can see my friend let everyone know that they were in transit and would be abroad over a holiday weekend. Again, here's where that private message function would be a better bet. Of course, this was how I found out that my friend would be away for the weekend, but I wondered how many other people learned the same thing?  

Have any Facebook No no's to share?

Pinterest contest = cheap(er) marketing

I know, I know, I keep taking these long breaks from this blog, and whenever I return my first post is about Pinterest.  I don't plan it this way, nor am I totally obsessed with Pinterest.  However, let me plow on.

I don't even know how I found this latest item...but I thought it was to great not to blog about.  Great schools, which is a nifty website and blog that focuses on education and helps families to identify the right school for their child using available public data and user reviews, has a great Pinterest sweepstakes going on now.

For 10 days, 10 lucky winners will win $100 in Target cards.  The idea is simple enough, follow Great Schools on Pinterest, create your own #greatschools board, pin an image from Great Schools on your own board, pin some more images that evoke the first day of school in your house and then fill out an entry form providing your name, email address and the link to your new Greatschools Pinterest board!

Sheer genius.  Here's my submission, did you do one?  Have you seen other similar contests?

Live Blogging From a Remote Location

One of the things I learned how to do last year was to live blog, from a remote location. First, I just love the sound of it! It's live, but I'm not there! Last year I would log into a webcast every quarter, and watch a live Interagency Coordinating Council meeting and blog about what was happening. I would type up quick notes, add links to relevant regulations or articles, explain abbreviations or add any other tidbits I knew from over 2 decades of following the policy making. 


Today, I put those same skills to work while awaiting the Supreme Court Decision on the Affordable Care Act. I logged into the SCOTUS Blog, opened up a new page in my blog site, got my hootsuite account all ready to go and started tweeting, posting and writing. It was fun to be both "there" and not "there". I was still in my pj's, since the anticipatory discussions started at 5:00am my time. I knew that CNN had called it wrong initially--more on that later--because I was monitoring the SCOTUS blog and I know that those folks spend more time with the Court and understand the nuances of these types of decisions.

Making your PowerPoint Presentation Interesting

People say they hate PowerPoint presentations. This is not news. Nor is it news that what they really hate are uninteresting PowerPoint presentations. You know the one's that rely on the standard PowerPoint template and only use the bullet point outlines to organize their presentation.

How Does One Improve their PowerPoint Presentation?

First, buy some books and attend some trainings (F2F or IRL) on how to make your PowerPoint slides more interesting. Check out some simple graphic design books too! One of the best tips I found was to create your own photos and clipart. When you are using your own images you don't have to worry about copyright infringement or your participants connecting your images to some other text in their heads.  For example, recently I was working on revising a presentation that discussed special education teams. The photos for the slides looked like this:

I'm concerned that this may result in some cognitive dissonance. As a curriculum designer and presenter I know that my participants are learning new vocabulary and trying to shift their thinking on certain preconceived notions. Thus I don't want cutesy pictures either. I want to be mindful that a picture of a boys baseball team might make people think of winning--there is no "winning" in special education, teams aren't competing, they are working collaboratively, no one team member is more important than another.  I also don't want families to think, "my child will never play on a team like this."  I don't think this is over-thinking things, you may however, disagree.  I'm thinking I may have to get a few friends together, hand out some photo disclosure forms and snap a few pictures.

Pictures Don't Tell the Whole Story

Great design won't make the whole presentation (though it does help). One also needs to know the material and engage the audience. It is important to insure that your intent and your audience's expectations match. If your audience is expecting to share their knowledge, you had better have space in your agenda to let them share their wealth. It is also important to know how to moderate and facilitate the discussion so that one participant doesn't monopolize the conversation. You want your participants to leave your session just like they would leave a great restaurant:  satisfied, yet still wanting more. Rather than handing out doggy bags you can indicate that participants can talk to you after the session if they need more information.

Webinar

I joined an online training on Thursday. I have been joining a biweekly webinar group to keep my online training skills up while I work on curriculum development. One thing that I realized during the training was it is a good thing to have a few experienced folks in the training. Particularly during online trainings. This training was on Google+ and Twitter, both platforms that I have familiarity with, though I did learn new things!

Experienced?

This was a hands-on training. Some of the training was on the fly. As the trainer showed participants how to set up a new google+ account or twitter account, it helped that some of us have already done this and could quickly link back to the account so that the others could see an existing account. Those of us who had used the two platforms were also able to answer questions either in chat or via phone during the training will the trainer opened the social media or uploaded documents.

Sharing the wealth

I enjoyed the opportunity to join others concerned with disseminating information and learning new software. I enjoy learning how to use new software and figuring out how to make the most of it for my own uses.

Is it stealing?

One of the things that I love about Web 2.0 is how free many folks are with their information and expertise. I've been researching how to assist people when researching on the internet. For me that has lead me down many other paths--I was the type of student who could spend hours looking up one word in the dictionary, because I found so many other interesting words on my way to the one I wanted/needed.  But I digress. 


Researching on the Internet
I've been tooling around today over on the NICHCY website. I've always turned to NICHCY for information on early intervention and special education. They've also got some great information on sharing or disseminating information and how to research.
Steal This!
The section I love the most, is their page called steal these dissemination strategies. They have model language for social media policies, Facebook posts and tweets and they encourage sharing, re-purposing and linking like this.
So I don't think it's stealing if it is encouraged, but I love that it is encouraged! What do you steal--or shall I say repurpose?  And do you make sure to mention where you originally found your material?

Family-Directed Assessments

The new Part C regulations have been revised to place additional importance on the voluntary family-directed assessment. For some this is new information, for others it is simply a confirmation of the how to perform initial and ongoing assessments. To create an IFSP that truly serves a child and their family, it is important that families decide if they want to participate in a family-directed assessment, who is involved (parents, grandparents, siblings, caregivers, even a neighbor), and how much to share (everything, something, nothing--though this won't really lead to an effective IFSP). The regulations require that qualified personnel use an assessment tool and an interview when performing a voluntary family-assessment.

Preparation

But how can families prepare? Families report that the initial assessment can be a whilrwind of new information and terms. One way is to provide families with a form that they can fill out before meeting with the assessment team.That form can help families to organize their thoughts, and begin the process of thinking about their concerns, priorities and resources. 

Training

Providing training to families on outcomes, what they are, and how families enrolled in early intervention can develop both child-focused and family-focused outcomes can be beneficial. Families and professionals also need to learn the difference between Part C outcomes and Part B goals. It can also be helpful to inform families and professionals about how goals in Part B can be developed that are student-focused or teacher-focused.

Telling Your Story

If we are to effect policy change, those of us who are impacted by policies must be ready, willing and able to tell our story.

Assisting families to think about their story, to identify which part of their story is relevant, and how to tell it in a way that gets their point across, is an important part of helping families to become leaders. If you watch any political debate you can easily see that politicians know the importance of staying on message. No matter what question is thrown at them they give the answer they prepared in debate prep. Family advocates need to learn this same skill. They need to identify their message, hone it and often be prepared to deliver it with minimal prep time.

How does one do this?
The first thing to do is to identify your most important point. For example, I was recently asked to talk about the Affordable Care Act. I support the Affordable Care Act, though I'm still waiting for the benefits to kick in for my family and for insurance to become "affordable". When I was contacted I was told the general scope of the article and had to take some time to prepare my thoughts.

But what to say? Our insurance isn't affordable yet, our son is under 18 so we can't take advantage of the fact that he can stay on our insurance until 26, we haven't hit our lifetime caps and we're the very people who need others to be mandated to buy insurance so that coverage becomes affordable for us. I had to think about how to say all of that in a way that still supported the ACA. I framed my comments by first talking about how rare our child's condition is, how expensive it has been, and how we've used credit cards to cover needed surgeries. Then I talked about how the ACA would relieve our financial and emotional stress because our son's future is brighter now with its passage. You can read the actual article here and decide if I told my family's story in a way that was relevant and got my point across.

Sharing

We've talked about sharing information by reusing and repurposing content that you have found some where else.  Another way to share information is to revise a blog post and submit it for publication somewhere else.


For example, I wrote about my concerns about the effects on a child's brain due anesthesia exposure before age 3 on my personal blog, on this blog and then submitted it for publication on the Special Education Advisor blog, which has a much larger audience than my own. .  

Mobile workspace

Enjoying a latte while planning a presentation on using technology to support & inform.

Expanding your Reach

In my last post I wrote about developing a communications plan as part of a membership drive. I took the time to look at my Facebook friends (612) and then I made a list of the Facebook friends of each of the board members who are administrators for the fanpage for the board I sit on. I subtracted our mutual friends, and then added up all of the potential followers we could pick up.

Potential Facebook Followers
Our potential number of followers was 2500!  2500! Wow! Even if we added only 10% of that number to our membership rolls, we could significantly up the number of members. But knowing that we had a potential universe of 2500 new members that isn't enough.

Maximizing Our Reach
We needed specific strategies. After some thought, I came up with a template for all future blog posts. As part of the development of a blogpost, I would also develop a few sample Facebook status updates and a few sample tweets. Each Board member could then be emailed a link to the latest blog post, a copy of the sample status updates and tweets and asked to post to their own pages, other pages they administer and to the timelines of their friends.

Will it Work?
Well, only time will tell. As of this writing I have one-third of the board following the plan, and we've already seen visits to our blog jump exponentially. We clearly need to stick to our plan, and remember that the outcome isn't visits to the blog, it is membership in our organization. 

Creating a Communications Plan

One of the board's I sit on is reevaluating how it is communicating with its membership. To be honest, that makes it sound like we've been communicating. Unfortunately, we've been too busy doing, to communicate. However, we know that we cannot grow or really be successful if we don't stop for a bit and think about how we communicate.

Self-Assessment
We are using our communications campaign as an adjunct to our membership recruitment campaign. Our first step was to survey our current members so that we could have a better idea of who are members are and what they need from the organization. We also asked them if they had interacted with our website, Facebook fanpage, twitter stream or our website. We then looked at our organization's stated mission and compared that to our current membership.


Making a Plan
The next step was to decide on our outcome. Our communications outcome is to increase membership. We needed to decide how we could use our communication strategy to increase membership. Now I'm  not going to give the particulars of our plan, but we decided that we needed a calendar that identified topic areas for each month, then we needed to insure that our information was posted across our different sites. 


Wait we aren't all proficient with social media
We needed to take a step back. It turns out we needed to go over how to do effectively use each of our media sites. We needed to learn how to use the sites as ourselves and as the organization. We needed to prepare primers on how to use each site. We also needed to have a short campaign to show the board how to share information across platforms. 

Sharing Information

We've asserted that Web 2.0 can be used to share information with families in previous posts here, here and here. And as we stated in the Web 2.0  post, one thing to think about is how information that is already out there can be re-purposed.

Repurposed?
Yes, reused, rewritten, reshared. Think of it as upcycling for information. There are great websites out there with tons of well-written information. Here's a sampling of my favorite early intervention websites: NECTAC, NICHCY, and the IDEA Partnership.This is a great website that is geared towards typical child development: Baby Center. And then there are those websites geared towards specific disabilities: NDSS, Autism Speaks, and dozens of others. There's also Pinterest, and Facebook Fanpages, and tons of wonderful blogs, that focus on a specific diagnosis or therapeutic approach.

One thing that can be helpful is to write a webpage or blog posting that deals with a specific issue and link to these other websites to assist families to learn how to research where they can find information when they are advocating on behalf of their child.

An Example, Please?
My son has an orthopedic impairment called Arthrogryposis.  Our community has a website, online forum, and a Facebook group. Recently we've been talking about a new report that links multiple exposures to anesthesia before age 3 to ADHD and learning disabilities. We've had discussions in the past regarding concerns about learning disabilities and inattentaton. Families shared that despite concerns raised by the child's general education teacher about how this was negatively impacting on the child's education, the IEPs for these students contained no goals or supports to address the concern. Families said that the schools informed them that since the students IEP was addressing an orthopedic impairment the focus was on their child's physical impairments and was not intended to address academic issues.  I did some quick research, got a hand finding the correct citations from a friend, and wrote a blog post that showed families where they could find letters from OSEP like this one explaining that IEP Teams should use the child's unique needs to decide what services to provide, not the disability label.  I also found citations that families could use to ask for additional evaluations.

But isn't this stuff already out there?
Yes, but that doesn't mean that people know where to find it or how to put the information to use.  Repurposing, reusing, rewriting and resharing can help families to find information and see how it might be put to use in the real world. 

Finding Information

There are many websites out there catering to the field of early intervention. Yet, anyone who provides training and support to families of young children knows that they continue to say that they are not finding the information that they want or need. What is the disconnect then?

Is it website design?

Many of the websites designed for early intervention programs use words that are not familiar to families who are new to early intervention. In fact, even calling it early intervention can be confusing! Families either have a diagnosis (Down syndrome, Arthrogryposis, Prematurity, microcephaly...) or a concern about a delay (not walking yet, delayed speech, not sitting up...). At the beginning of their journey families often don't know the words or jargon that go with early intervention. It is therefore important to think about what words families use when searching online. What information new families might need or want. Organizations can use a small focus group of families new to early intervention to ask them how they searched, what they searched for and what they were hoping to find. Having this information can help to create a website that provides the information in a way that increases the likelihood that families can find what they need, when they need it.

Is it an issue of focus?
State early intervention programs not only share information with families, they share it with other state agencies, county programs, contracted providers and early childcare programs. Each of these audiences have different needs from the website and different levels of expertise with the terms used in early intervention. Again, when designing or redesigning a website it is important to think about how different users will interact with the site. The site can be organized to have different doors or portals for different types of users. Even when thinking only about families we can think about the difference between families with a diagnosis and those with concerns about delays. Families of potentially eligible children have different questions then families of children who have been determined eligible. And families who have moved into leadership positions--joining family advisory councils, parent to parent programs and state Interagency Coordinating Councils (ICCs)--have different informational needs. Thinking through these different groups and their informational needs can help to insure your website is reaching your intended audience.

Social Media Marketing

Let's take a step back.  We started this blog by asserting that web 2.0 could be used to support and inform families of young children with disabilities.  But you may be asking how do people do it?  How do you figure out which media to use? How will you navigate the privacy rights of families while still providing them with the information and support they are seeking?

Outcomes
I believe that the first step is to decide on outcomes.  Do you want to create a space where families can quickly find information about activities?  or applications?  Do you want to provide a place for families to share their questions and tips for one another?  Is your intention to broadcast or discuss?  Your outcomes may change over time, but it is a good idea to start with a few specific outcomes.

Focus
Once you have your outcomes, decide which mediums can help you to meet your outcomes.  If you want families to see how to do something, you might want to use a video sharing site or an image sharing site.  If you want families to share their tips and questions then social networking might be the way to go, or perhaps a wiki.

Outline
The next step is to develop an outline.  What information do you anticipate sharing?  How often will you share information?  Setting realistic expectations for your ability to update information or respond to questions and comments is important.  

Crossposting
To generate a following it is important that you also think about who you will interact with and where you can find more followers.  For example, as I write this blogposting my outline includes posting this to LinkedIn, tweeting it, and to my Facebook page.  My outline includes how I will post to each of these media and when.  It is important to strike a balance between over and underposting and to be mindful of how many of your fans follow you on all of those media.  

Assess
Like all things the outline is not set in stone.  It is something that you have to continually review and revise.  Pinterest wasn't even on my radar a few months ago.  Even once I started using it personally it took some time for me to figure out how best to use it for my purposes.  It is also important to decide when you will simply use the work of others.  The great thing about Web 2.0, is that you can create content simply by sharing the content of others--with attribution of course!

More fun with Pinterest!

We've been talking about Pinterest during our last few posts, here and here.  We have been busy pinning and pinning, adding pinners to our board and well, we realized that our board was getting unwieldy.  So, we've broken the EI Board into a group of boards.


Rearranging Boards
There are no hard and fast rules for how to arrange your Pinterest boards.  However, if you want others to follow you, it is helpful if you think about your board name, what others might look for and how to categorize your board.  So our EI Board:  is now broken into the following boards:

• Adaptive/Behavior/Responsibility
• Assistive Technology
• Fine Motor
• Gross Motor
• Sensory
• Social Emotional
• Speech/Feeding

Added Bonus

Rearranging our boards has also meant that we've picked up new followers!  Folks we hadn't interacted with before.  (Blogging about Pinterest, and sharing our blogs on other sites has also lead us to other Pinterest followers as well).

Sharing federal news

The Office of Civil Rights recently sent letters out to districts across the country regarding how schools define which children have disabilities and how they provide support and assistance to those students.
Guidance Memos
In the not so distant past, a letter such as this guidance letter from OCR one would be sent to districts, who would copy it and send it on to their Directors of Special Education and Principals. Who might add it to their monthly staff meeting discussions. Copies would also be sent out to Parent Training and Information Centers, who would add a blurb in their monthly or quarterly newsletter. And finally, it would be linked to on the US Dept of Education website.

Social Media
Today, however, that same letter has been blogged, tweeted, and Facebooked multiple times.  And this is the second go around for this particular letter! That means that not only is the letter reaching those who are in administration and teaching, and those who are funded to help families with children with disabilities, but also, one can only hope the message is reaching regular folk!

Is there a down-side?
Well, as the article points out the National Association of School Boards is concerned that parent organizations will disseminate the letter, leading to increased parents requesting accommodations. But, perhaps, what it will mean is a move to create a real continuum that includes fully implement RTI (response to intervention), 504 plans and IEPs? Perhaps the move by the University of Florida to merge it's special education and general education programs into one program, that insures that all teachers graduate with a foundation in both disciplines will be implemented elsewhere. In the meantime, I don't see a downside to districts being reminded that just  a child who has a prosthetic limb is still a child with a disability who may need a 504 or IEP plan.  

We're in love...

On Saturday, I posted about Pinterest. Today I am going to show you how I've been using Pinterest for my early intervention work. I began by just looking at all of the different boards out there, and as I mentioned, like Alice you can find yourself in a any number of crazy places!  So let's backtrack and talk about how I found some of my pins.  

Once I realized that I wanted to collect pins that reflected images around early intervention and assistive technology I first searched the kids section. There I found many other images from OTs, PTs, and SLPs and teachers. Then I went back to some of my tried and true websites and started pinning those images as well.  And then I thought, wait a second, I am repinning from others, why not invite those folks to pin to my board?  And you should see how it has exploded, I've added a dozen followers, too!   

Here's another shot of my EI Board, which you can follow here: http://pinterest.com/caseywaid/ei-ideas/

Are you using Pinterest?  If so, I'd like to follow you and read about what you are doing with your boards.

Whew...we're back!

Last month we talked about using Delicious for keeping track of our bookmarks. In the weeks since, we've found that many of our friends are more excited by Pinterest. Pinterest is an app (or application) that can be used as an add-on to Facebook or separately. To use Pinterest, one must be invited by another user. It seems to take some folks a little time to get the hang of how it works, this post will explain how we are using it. Once you've gotten over those hurdles the fun begins!  

Pinning as a way to Bookmark

Pinterest really comes out of the design world. Users have boards, think inspiration boards or bulletin boards. Onto which they "pin" images. You can then follow other users, their individual pins or just repin their finds to your own boards. When you first join you start with some generic boards, onto which you can pin your first finds. You can also create your own boards, with their own names. The fun is watching what is hot and popular (more on that later).  

As someone who doesn't self-identify as particularly crafty or arty I was a reluctant pinterest user. But I can safely say that I have both gotten the hang of it and I'm having fun! My neighbors are both crafty and involved in architecture and design so their boards have lots of design ideas, they separate them out by color or period. Meanwhile, not suprisingly, I am using some of my boards to collect ideas around early intervention and assistive technology, as you may be able to see here: http://pinterest.com/caseywaid/ei-ideas/

Popular Pins

One can find, that like Alice you drop into a rabbit hole when hanging out on Pinterest, so beware! You can view all pins, or search by categories, you can get lost, nah sucked into viewing loads of boards and pins! Then you may even find yourself down at the IKEA searching for spice racks that will make the most marvelous little bookshelves...found on this great blog:  theplanetpink.com . Unfortunately, our local IKEA is out of stock on this lovely item...they pegged me immediately as a Pinterest user, and said that though the folks over at http://www.ikeahackers.net/ had been at this for much longer it wasn't until Pinterest that they really saw DIYers who intended to hack their wares for other purposes.  

Hacking Pinterest

And my use of Pinterest to track early intervention strategies and assistve technology would probably fit under the heading of Pinterest hack. It can be hard to predict which social media site or app will be popular. I will probably use both Delicious and Pinterest for now. Let me know which ones you are using and how you are using them!