Creating a Facebook Group for a Staff
Recently my family, a work group, book groups, and my college golfing buddies have all set up closed Facebook groups. I have to say I love the semi-private nature of the groups. Last month, the newspaper staff also decided to create a group to hopefully improve communication.
Students have used the group to discuss story ideas, gather information, plan parties, and debate editor positions for next year.
To create a group follow Facebook’s instructions below. The one minor problem I ran into was friending students. I don’t friend students as my personal preference to set up some boundaries. To avoid this I set up a fake person to create the group and invite everyone to the group.
Overall it has been much more effective than email and has put the students more in control.
To create a group follow Facebook’s instructions below:
Once the group is created, you will be taken to the group’s page. You can click “Edit Group” at the top right of the page to add a group description, set a group email address, add a group picture and manage members.
My editor-in-chief beat me to the punch in creating a staff facebook group this year. The biggest positive to that was that she was then able to invite me to join, then make me an admin. This allowed me to join and contribute to the group using my normal facebook profile without having to friend any students.
Overall it has been a nice way to communicate with students, but I still have a few whose parents won’t allow them to be part of any social network. Sometimes I find myself forgetting about them. I try to post anything that I put on facebook on my class blog as well.
Love this idea. Also love that I sent this link to my EIC for next year and said, “Do you think we should do this?” And she replied, ” I already have.” One step ahead of me–which is why she’s the Editor for next year!!
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