What is Social Media for Schools and what is it that we do?

1. What is Social Media for Schools?
We are a new service designed to build a professional partnership hub for
senior management in schools and to enable schools to use Social Media
effectively and professionally using online and especially face to face training
and projects.
What is a “CIC” – what does it have to do with schools?
We are a new type of company, a CIC, a Community Interest Company, a
social enterprise designed specifically to help change the educational landscape
in the 21st Century by using modern networking technologies and informal
professional networks to help you manage your school more efficiently and
more successfully.
Although we are a commercial enterprise, we cannot issue shares and any
profit we do make has to go right back into the company to help further the
ethos of using Social Media in Schools – unlike normal companies we have to
renew our social purpose each year stating our role as social entrepreneurs to
enable change in education.
We cannot sell the company on and we, as directors, cannot personally profit
from the company. We do not issue shares or make profit for ourselves as
individuals.
We are a not-for-profit business
We think it is important here to draw the distinction between us and any
purely commercial service or product.
All our dealings will be totally transparent and you can follow our journey on
this the Social Media for Schools site and on Twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn.
There are no hidden agendas; we will be building tools for and by the
community we intend to serve.
We believe in grass roots bottom-up management and connections.
SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SCHOOLS CIC - Company No. 07659241

2. Too many large procurement companies win European contracts based on
standardisation and then hiove off the expertise into closed silos. We have
found this doesn't suit schools where there is innovation, diversity and choice.
We keep things local but open out and are transparent and share expertise in
the network.
No “Quick Fix” products no-one uses
Unlike some commercial firms who offer a quick fix “product” that no-one uses
or becomes rapidly out of date, we would rather take our time and build a hub
of expertise that co-opts pupils, parents, teachers and the wider community to
demonstrate the strategic use social networking for the common good and to
enable schools to be more efficient and better connected.
The paradox is we believe that a lot of day-to-day face-to-face
organisation is needed to do this. Social Media is only the glue to help
people get better connected to do the job of educating our neighbourhoods
and communities.Headteachers do this superbly already – we aim to help them
build parental engagement an community beyond the gates of the school.
Rather than foist the use of Social Media on a school we believe schools should
be using Social Media to help augment what is already good practice and using
it, where appropriate, to celebrate and become more efficient in their dealings
with the wider world.
We will not fight shy of sharing good practice that involves pupils using Social
Media. We see the process as wholistic with contributions coming from
everyone and not being purely top down.
Our Vision
Our vision is to collate and build the expertise needed to bring school
communities into the 21st Century in as an authentic and highly professional
way as possible; to help connect schools back to their surrounding
communities and with more genuine formal and informal learning through the
medium of Social Media where appropriate.
Taking out the Fear Factor
We intend to take the fear factor and social panic out of using Social Media by
putting up exemplars of how headteachers, senior managers, pupils and
parents use Web 2.0 and networking to their schools’ advantage.
But more than that we want to partner at scale with those organisations who
share our vision to enable social change in this way. We are set up to record,
broadcast and amplify good practice and we want that to permeate through
the education system for the common good. Where we find we share it in our
real life and online “smart” networks.
SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SCHOOLS CIC - Company No. 07659241

3. How we work?
We are all about working in partnership, innovatively with other organisations
in modular ways. We are not about competition or traditional models of
business. We feel business can be used to generate wealth in community and
educational terms but not as a means to exploit passing trends or fads. We are
in this for the long haul.
We are about building and shoring up and making secure communities and
using the company to make things happen that couldn’t otherwise on a much
larger, but equally highly local, scale.
We are quite prepared to work with anyone provided it gives added value to
the communities involved. We don’t believe in quick fixes when it comes to
parental engagement and good governance – so you won’t find us peddling
“products” and “services” that have nothing to do with your community.
We are set up as a business to help you use Social Media effectively in your
learning communities and to help build a network of expertise to help you do
the job efficiently and well with the added bonus of increased parental
engagement and involvement.
We want effective partners
We will be funding and partnering with much bigger organisations to build a
network of expertise that doesn’t yet exist (or only exists in pockets) – we
hope you’ll join along on this adventure and watch the story unfold with us. We
believe in being highly innovative in business dealings – in fact we think the
more open and transparent we are about how we do business, the more
effective our business will be. Our idea of “Partnership Plugins” where multi-
agency organisations work together to achieve what one business and school
could not do alone is a forward thinking model.
We will be using academic partners to do research around the networks'
activities and will be sharing that with the wider educational community.
After all we’re here to help reconnect communities with learning and not sell
“stuff”. We are about ideas, aspiration, ‘can do’ and how to put that into
practice for the benefit of everyone.
Please sign up for further details
Please do sign up for details of the hub and toolkit which will be coming out in
2012. At present we are conducting short surveys of target groups to see what
their reactions are to the use of social media in schools as well as filming
practitioners up and down the country who are making the difference. We are
starting this enterprise with our own money and seeking financial aid from
philanthropists who want a stake in a positive and realistic sustained future in
education.
SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SCHOOLS CIC - Company No. 07659241

4. Who are we?
Leon Cych
Leon taught in inner London schools for over 23 years. He has been an
independent ICT consultant in the field of innovation for the last nine years. He
has been very involved with the TeachMeet movement and films and
disseminates local TeachMeets and other events where he can. But in the last
few years he has decided to help schools develop the use of 21st Century
social networks for the greater good. In having numerous discussions with
parents, teachers, headteachers and senior managers he felt it was time
someone helped to build an informal network of expertise to help schools
manage the challenge of working and learning in the 21st Century.
Rosie Slosek
Rosie handles research and administration. She holds a post-graduate research
methods degree from the University of Nottingham and has 15 years of
experience of academic, clinical and market research from a user perspective.
Please go to :
http://socialmediaforschools.org.uk/?page_id=6
or see our short film here:
http://vimeo.com/29799809
or email:
leon@socialmediafroschools.org.uk
SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SCHOOLS CIC - Company No. 07659241