Play

I attended the Massachusetts Early Intervention Consortium's Conference in early May. The MEIC, as it is called, is an exciting opportunity for early intervention professionals  and the parents they work with, to learn together. The key note speaker this year was Nancy Carlsson-Paige (you can read more about her here: http://www.empoweredbyplay.org/blog/). Ms. Carlsson-Paige talked about the importance of unstructured play--pretend play, that is self-directed.

I was there to present a two-day intensive workshop entitled: Social Media Strategies: Using Technology to Support and Inform. While it might seem that these two topics were incongruous, I would argue that Pinterest, one of the most popular social media sites for young mothers, shows that families are creating and sharing ideas about unstructured play.  And to prove it, I want to share some pins from families showing how to reuse those old entertainment centers:

A quick trip to a yard sale or thrift store, some paint, fabric and creativity and for under a $100 you can have a pretend kitchen that can provide hours and hours of imaginative play.

Need a Handy Guide to Social Media Sites?

social media sites

Social media includes web-based and mobile- based technologies, which allow users to create their own content and share the content of others.  Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content." Following is a sampling of social media sites, explanations of the site and when it was launched and suggested users or pages to follow, please note that these lists are not exhaustive.  There are dozens of great social media sites out there, this is just to give you a flavor of what is out there—please explore and be social and share!

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched February 2004.  http://www.facebook.com

Facebook page insights explained here: http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/FacebookAds/Page_Insights_en_US.pdf

Pages to Like: EIFA, Early Intervention Parent Leadership Project, National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities (NICHCY), Division for Early Childhood, Center for Early Literacy Learning (CELL), Disability Scoop, Family Voices, Inc, (national and your state’s chapter), Disability.gov, Special Olympics, AMCHP, TACSEI, The Arc of the United States, AAPPD,  Friendship Circle of Michigan, Community Catalyst, PlayAbility Toys, Reach Out and Read, Zero To Three Policy Network, The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), Special Education Advisor, Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults, Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults,

Google+

Google+ (pronounced and sometimes written as Google Plus, sometimes abbreviated as G+) is a multilingual social networking and identity service owned and operated by Google Inc.  Google+ was launched June 28, 2001.  http://www.plus.google.com/

Groups to Follow: Special Education Advisor, NICHCY,

Linked in

LinkedIn is a professional social networking website.  Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking.  http://www.linked.com/   

Groups to Join: Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), Early Intervention Professionals, Association for Childhood Education International, ZERO TO THREE Policy Network, Parents of Special Kids, Parents Helping Parents, President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, Early Intervention Therapists,

Pinterest

Pinterest is a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections.  Launched in March 2010 it is currently one of the fastest growing social sites. http://www.pinterest.com/. Pinterest requires an invitation at the time of this writing, you can request an invite from someone you know who is already using Pinterest.

Pinners to follow: Pedia Staff on Pinterest, SPDBN, 5m4SN (5 Minutes for Special Needs), Special Needs Homeschooling, Caseywaid, Apraxia KIDS, Rick Smith (aka Noah’s Dad), NICHCY,

Tumblr

Tumblr is a micro-blogging platform and social networking website, owned and operated by Tumblr, Inc.  The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog, named a “tumblelog”. Users edit their content from the “dashboard” interface, where the option to post content and review posts of followed blogs appear.  Tumblr was launched on April 27, 2007.  http://tumblr.com

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking service and micro-blogging  service that allows its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets”.  Users can group posts together by topic or type by use of hashtags – words or phrases prefixed with a "#" sign. The "@" sign followed by a username is used for mentioning or replying to other users.  To repost a message from another Twitter user, and share it with one's own followers, the retweet function is symbolized by "RT" in the message. Twitter was created in March 2006 and launched that July.  http://twitter.com

Tweeple to follow: EIFAorg, Family Voices of IN, DissemCOP (Dissemination COP), SpecialEdAdvice, aecfkidscount (Kids Count at Annie E. Casey Foundation), NDSC (National DS Congress), DSAInfo (Down Syndrome Association), ASHA, earlyautism, NCWD/Youth, Inclusive_class,  edcocp, EducationNext, DissemCoP, NICHCY, IntervenersDB, OfficeofEdTech, StephenLukeEd

Apps...

Social media apps

Apps, or application software, are computer software created to help the user to perform specific tasks. Application software generally apply in the performance of tasks that benefit the user.

Addthis

AddThis is a widely used social bookmarking service founded in 2006 and owned by Clearspring.  AddThis can be integrated into a website or browser with the use of a web widget. Once added, users can bookmark an item using a variety of services, such as Facebook, MySpace, Google Bookmarks, Pinterest, and Twitter.  http://www.addthis.com/

bitly

Bitly (formerly bit.ly) is a URL shortening and bookmarking service owned by bitly, Inc., a betaworks company.  The bitly URL shortening service is popular on micro-blogging website Twitter because it was the default URL shortening service on the website since May 6, 2009, replacing TinyURL.  http://bit.ly/

Hootsuite

HootSuite is a social media management system for brand management created in 2008. The user interface takes the form of a dashboard, and supports social network integrations for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, Mixi, MySpace, Ping.fm, and WordPress.  Additional integrations are available via HootSuite’s App Directory which includes support for Tumblr, Trendspottr, Constant Contact. Digg, Flickr, Get Satisfaction, InboxQ, and YouTube.  http://www.hootsuite.com/

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a social media dashboard application for management of Twitter and Facebook accounts. Like other Twitter applications it works with the Twitter API to allow users to send and receive tweets and view profiles. http://www.tweetdeck.com/

Twitpic

TwitPic is a website that allows users to easily post pictures to Twitter.  TwitPic is often used by citizen journalists to upload and distribute pictures in near real-time as an event is taking place.  http://twitpic.com/

Tweetchat

Twitter chats, sometimes known as a Twitter party or a tweet chat, happen when a group of people all tweet about the same topic using a specific tag (#) called a hashtag that allows it to be followed on Twitter. The chats are at a specific time and often repeat weekly or bi-weekly or are only at announced times. http://tweetchat.com/

Read more: http://janetfouts.com/how-to-participate-in-a-tweet-chat/#ixzz2JJpeqm3K 

Updating Content on Facebook

Facebook timeline status updates are limited to 420 characters.  In addition to personal timelines, users can create Personal pages or Fanpages for their organizations or buisnesses.

Facebook content can be updated on an hourly, daily or weekly basis.  It is important to remember when you are using Facebook as your page, rather than your personal timeline that you are posting, not as an individual, but rather as an organization.

How to Use a Facebook Page:

1.    You can switch between yourself and the page by clicking on the arrow next to Home at the top of the page, and saying you want to use Facebook as a page. Alternatively, you can use Facebook as yourself, and post to your page as yourself.  When you post this way your profile picture will be next to anything you post to your Facebook page.  when you are posting as the page—remember that you are posting as an organization, and please do not use I, me, my, as you are representing the organization as a whole, and folks will not know who is “speaking”.  If you want to post in the first person, then simply post using the link above to access the page without switching to using Facebook as a page.  (When you are using Facebook as the page and you want to return to your own persona, just follow the same directions and click on use as YOURNAME).

2.    Approximately 48 hours after posting, the analytics for your page will show for admins.  See picture below to see how the analytics show up on the admin view of the page—you need to use Facebook as a page to see the analytics.

Assessing your Social Media Needs

Making a Plan
Before you can develop a social media plan, it is a good idea to assess your needs.  Here is a quick tool to help you identify your needs.

• How frequently do you want to update your content on your website?
• every six months
• once a quarter
• monthly
• weekly

• How frequently do you want to update your content on a blog?
• monthly
• twice a week
• weekly

• How frequently do you want to update your content on a Facebook Page?
• weekly
• daily
• twice a day
• hourly

• How frequently do you want to update your content on a YouTube Channel?
• bimonthl
• monthly
• weekly

• How frequently do you want to update your content on a Twitter feed?
• a few times a week
• daily
• twice a day
• hourly
• many times an hour

Now Don't Run Away!

You do not need to use each of these mediums, though many organizations do. But you do have to recognize that twitter content moves very fast, so you need to be updating more frequently if you want your content to be seen. However, this also means that you can use the same content  many times on twitter without worry that your followers will be annoyed.  If however, you posted the same post to your blog, week after week, you would quickly lose followers.  The point is, assess what you want to accomplish with the various mediums, look at how frequently the content needs to be updated to avoid being either too stale or too annoying and chart your own course.

Add This

One of the easiest ways to “capture” web content, both hyperlinks and images from other websites and share it to Facebook is to use a browser plug-in.  One plug-in that is easy to use and you can place as a shortcut on your browser tab is: Add This.  You will have an orange-red button with a white plus sign installed on your browser bookmark list.  Once installed in your browser toolbar, you can customize to list the social media sites you use most.   You can then share a webpage via email, to Facebook, twitter, blogger, Pinterest, etc.,  

Now you can easily share any website you find! If you are signed into Facebook and using it as your page, use Add This to share some content, it will be shared as your page. If you are signed in as yourself and use add this to share some content, it will be shared on your Timeline.

Generally, one wants to sprinkle Facebook posts throughout the day, and avoid posting a series of shares at one time. This annoys your followers and reduces the importance of your posts. Recent analytic studies show that shares of posts are highest on Saturday mornings. 

Trusted Administrators

Facebook has expanded the ability of users to have more than one person operate a Facebook page. This can be a great way to increase family leadership.  

First Things First

Before handing over the reins to your Facebook Page, it is a good idea to have a written communication plan.  This plan can be quite simple, but should outline the objectives that your organization hopes to achieve by using Facebook. It might be as simple as increasing traffic to your website, or encouraging visitors to take action on a particular activity, or it may be that you are interested in informing others about issues. A good place to start is the SocialFish white paper on social media policies. This white paper really helps users to think about the various levels of awareness and responsibility that different members might have for the organization's social media activities.

Whatever your objective, starting with a plan can guide you as you determine your page's "voice".  It is also important to be explicit with other administrator's about your expectations. Your page probably isn't the place to discuss who you are rooting for in the Super Bowl--unless your page is focused on sports fans--but, using the Super Bowl as a topic you might be able to generate interest in your page.  For instance, if your page is focused on young children with disabilities, asking how families include their child in big family events like a Super Bowl party might be a great way to generate discussion. Or you might want to talk about recent letter  from the US Department of Education regarding the importance of insuring that children with disabilities have access to school sports.

Using a communication plan can help you to schedule your posts and stay consistent with your level of activity.

Now what?

Now that you have your objectives clarified and have a communication plan in place it is time to encourage others to assist with managing the page. It will get messy. This is an opportunity to practice, post and evaluate. Remember, if all of your posts are "safe" or tame, you will not generate much buzz. On the other hand, buzzworthy posts often generate strong opinions.  It will be up to leadership to determine how much controversy is to much. Setting aside time to review posts and discuss how people are deciding what to post and when is a good way to insure that everyone is staying true to the organization's message. Generally, it is a good idea to begin by setting a timetable to review activity, rather than waiting for a misstep to schedule a discussion.

Is there another way to generate activity?

If you aren't ready to turn over the reins, or believe that you might need to spend more time supporting other content creators, there are other ways to increase your reach. One way to increase activity, without sharing administration of your page, is to ask others to share and re-share your content.  You can even create multiple sample posts, that connect with the posts shared on your page and encourage family leaders to share your page to their own timeline.  This can have a two-fold advantage, as it can increase your reach, and it can help model how to  craft an effective post.

Using YouTube to Inform

Despite being owned by Google, YouTube is still the number one search engine. While most of the videos on YouTube are there for entertainment value, there are many educational videos out there.

Finding Videos

The US Department of Education has a YouTube channel with hundreds of videos. Many of the technical assistance centers funded by the US Dept of Ed also have their own YouTube channels with hundreds of uploaded videos. Channels funded with education dollars include: 

The National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center has many wonderful training videos. The Technical Assistance Center on Social and Emotional Intervention for Young Children or TACSEI channel has wonderful videos about supporting young children's social and emotional development. There are also YouTube channels featuring the work of many of the Parent and Training and Information Centers, which are funded with funds from Part D of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).  

Creating Playlists

One way to make it easier for families, and the professionals who support them, to find high quality videos that address their informational needs is to create playlists. Playlists can be grouped by topic area, for instance, Assistive Technology, or Social and Emotional Interventions. Another great option is to use your YouTube channel to feature different videos.  An organization might choose to showcase a different video each month.  

How are Families Using Their Own Videos to Inform and Support?

Creating, and even editing, videos is getting so easy these days. Many phones take high quality video. Families of young children with disabilities use their phones to take and share videos. These videos may be used to show their children's strengths or to illustrate specific challenges. Families use video to celebrate hard won achievements, like those first steps, or the first time a child figures out how to propel their wheelchair. Families often share videos with one another, this can be particularly helpful when a child is resistant to using new equipment, or when a parent might want to see how someone else coaches their child to try something new.  It is important that the professionals who support families be aware of these practices and provide guidance to families on how they can protect their privacy.   Using video can definitely help families to feel supported, however families need to be aware that once videos are out on the web, they have little control over who sees or shares them.

How Can You Use Social Media to Develop Leaders?

Social Media really lends itself to developing leaders. Social Media can be used to provide new leaders with an opportunity to develop their communication skills. The instant messaging features of Facebook or the ability to hold a live chat using twitter can provide new leaders with an opportunity to use technology to gather, share experiences, ask questions and develop new skills.

Got Writer's Block?  How To Get that Blogpost Written

When working with new leaders it is often important to provide a recipe. In the Guest blogpost above the family leader was asked to share about her experience attending her first national conference.  The organizers provided her with a list of questions to get her started.  The questions included:  How were you picked to attend the conference?  Did you need to submit an application?  What did you do to get ready to attend the conference (did you meet with other members of your state team before the conference?  Did you have to make your travel arrangements?  How did you handle childcare while you were out of town?  What types of clothing did you pack for the trip).  What did you learn during the conference?  How will you bring that information back to your state?  What didn't you know before heading out town, that you wished you had known?

New Role?  Want to Share?

Another way to expand family leadership skills is to ask family leaders who may have new roles, Chair of a Committee, Chair of a Council, or staff to a committee.  To write a few blog posts about this new experience. This type of blogging can help answer questions for other family leaders.  It can provide a forum to explore changing roles, the complications that arise when a family leader moves into a role or when a family leader is also a provider or professional staff. Sharing these experiences can be helpful to other family leaders, and can create a community of practice.

Expand the Reach of Others

One of the reasons we like to Web 2.0 is how easy it is to share, repackage, and re-share content.  Sometimes the content we find is too complicated or uses legalese, sometimes it is too vague for our purposes. But thanks to the advances available to us we can rework content to suit our needs.  

Don't Forget to Hit the Share Button

We also like to hit that share button on Facebook or the retweet button on twitter. It's the 2013 version of that Breck's commercial: I told someone and she told someone, and so on! With only a few minutes, we have a quick blurb and can quickly share information with our followers that they might not have seen from the original poster.  We can even add our own spin, by writing our own blogpost that explores our thoughts on the topic, link to the original site and share the whole thing via Facebook and Twitter!

Won't Our Followers Be Overwhelmed?

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your viewpoint, there is so much content floating around on the web that sharing, re-packaging and re-sharing is necessary. In addition, it does take visitors time to view, absorb and act on content.  Thus re-sharing is often a necessary activity on the web.

Provide Guidance

We've talked about the importance of helping families to be aware of and understand their privacy rights under the law, and how to use the available privacy controls of the different social media sites.

Got a Template?

There's good news, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Great content is already available! You can edit that content to your liking so that you can address your audience. The NICHCY Social Media Policy is a good place to start when developing content to explain to families how they can safeguard the privacy of themselves and their children. NICHCY recognizes one of the most important facets of using web 2.0 to support and inform--share content you've developed, reshare good content that someone else has created (with a citation or attribution) and when necessary make some slight changes to fit your audience! In fact, they even have a great little toolkit called "Steal These Strategies" . On that page they encourage folks to adapt their social media policy, they have examples of Facebook and Twitter posts and they share their dissemination plan with readers. The cost? They simply ask that you share your great strategies with them! (Which is something we've been doing for some time now!).  This member of Congress has a nice social media policy, that explains that she wants to have an opportunity to hear from all of her constituents, that email is what constituents should use if they are looking for an answer, and then she gives some warnings that she will not tolerate  bullying, intimidation, or harassment on her page.

Do I Really Have to Teach People How to Use the 'net?

Unfortunately, dear reader, yes you do! Not everyone understands the subtle communication rules. Some users, simply jump in and start sharing without realizing that there are different levels of sharing. For instance, not everyone realizes that when they post to Facebook they can control (to some extent--but not completely), who see's their posts by clicking on the icon in the share box on the lower righthand side, this allows them to set whether they want a post shared with everyone by clicking on the little world icon, or you can reveal the choices, to decide if you want to share with friends except acquaintances, Only Me, Custom, etc., 

However, and this is an important point, once you've shared something on the internet, even if you've limited who has access, you no longer have control over what happens to what you've shared. Even the gurus of social media sometimes encounter problems with this. Last December, Randy Zuckerberg, sister of that Zuckerberg, posted a picture that she thought was only going to be seen by her close friends. What happened next could happen to anyone:One of her friends, saw the photo and re-shared it, then someone else re-shared and tweeted it--probably because they had added the twitter app to their Facebook page. What happened next could only happen to someone famous: a public temper tantrum. When Randy used twitter to chastise the person who tweeted the post, tech gurus everywhere laughed.They pointed out, correctly, that Facebook has a history of changing privacy settings without warning, that they often revert settings to a "default" or public setting without asking or warning users who have spent time setting their privacy controls. And finally, they reminded Randy that once it's out there it is out there.

What Other Tips Do Users Need?

Many users still need simple reminders that it is not a good idea to post their full birthdate, address or days when their home will be unoccupied on social media sites.  We've talked about these types of posts before here.  Which is why I think it is important to have a social media policy, that way folks aren't surprised when you hide or remove their posts on your page.

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.

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.

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. .  

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.