“I’ve been watching your Board Meetings through the online webcasts and they are great! I’m so glad I can throw on my PJs and not have to worry about getting a sitter or finding parking. I love being able to watch from home and share my opinions online knowing that trustees are engaging with constituents in a variety of different ways!”
A constituent asked me how to get started following the education buzz online and on twitter. The great thing about twitter is you are always welcome to watch from the sidelines- no need to create an account or having to give out any personal information! If you are new to the social media community and you’d like to follow the various discussions about education, let me give you a few trailheads to start out with.
Click the following underlined links or “hash tags” (any word or group of letters following a number sign is called a “hash tag” in twitter speak.)
These hyperlinks will take you to a page where you can see all of the different users typing various messages all indexed together by their common hashtag. Hash tags are generated by anyone and usually they just catch on once enough people start using them such as #sirken for the Sir Ken Robinson talk last week in Red Deer. There are quite a few other trustees on twitter and you’ll usually find them under tweeting under one of the below hashtags.
- #yeg (yeg is the airport code for Edmonton so most people generally tag their posts with #yeg if they want to talk about Edmonton related matters just as our friends in calgary use #yyc)
- #epsb (Edmonton Public School Board related tweets)
- #abed (Typically tweets related to education in Alberta)
- #ableg (Tweets related to alberta politics)
- #abfuture – The tag for the tweets from the Learning Our Way conference
- #asba – Alberta School Boards’ Association
- #ata – Alberta Teachers Association related matters
- #yegcc (Tweets related to edmonton city council)
- EPSB on Facebook This is the official Edmonton Public Facebook site. If you are looking for me, I’m here and here.
- EPSB “GO PUBLIC”on Twitter: This is the official Edmonton Public twitter site.
- If you want more general updates about all things political in Alberta, give Daveberta a read as he has an excellent list along his sidebar of various alberta political blogs. Ken Chapman also has a fairly comprehensive list.
For those of you in the #abed community who think I might have missed something, Please leave a comment with your suggestions. If you have any hashtags I missed or should include in my list, please comment below and I’ll revise this post before sending it out to my school councils.
In just 60 seconds of scrolling down the #EPSB list I can get a quick “environment scan” of what the daily buzz is, what is in the newspapers, and what issues might be coming forward for our trustees to deal with. Social media is no substitute for being present on the ground at school councils, events, and other public gatherings, but it’s a free and easy way to keep informed!
3 Responses to “How to follow EPSB and Alberta Education debates on social media”
Excellent summary, Michael. Now that EPSB is not going to be including the ability to comment with the livestream, the discussion will surely move over to #epsb, which I like. Looking forward to seeing more and more people chatting about board meetings as we sit around in our comfy clothes with our after-dinner glass of wine. How civilized!
on February 16th, 2011 at 1:21 pm #
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Michael Janz, Michael Janz. Michael Janz said: #epsb/#abed community: Trying to create brief trailhead into Twitter/SM for parent councils. Missed anything? http://is.gd/HnEOl4 [...]
This is a great list – I’ll definitely be referring people to it. In addition to @gopublic_, EPSB has been using #gopublic to tag stories about what’s happening around the District.