Twitter and Facebook are part of the social media communication central in our young teens and adult lives. As a librarian, we need to know all about the social media circuits and how we can use these outlets to advertise our own library. We want to brag about our library, notify our school's community, and even let our students know what new books are coming to our library (like a movie release date). Of course, using these social media outlets we as librarians also need to spread the word about "Internet Safety and Intellectual Freedom" in order to make our students successful and protect them from online predators.
Facebook has its advantages and disadvantages when it comes using it as a resource. If you want to dedicate this page to school only then one must consider privacy settings when it comes to who can see this site or not, and that would be a advantage to weed out the "stranger danger." The downside of those privacy settings could make it difficult to accept friendship requests and knowing if that said person belongs to the school or has students that attend that school.
My last semester I had to set up a Twitter account and I don't know too much about the Twitter scene. My school and school district is starting to get on the Twitter trend. I'm not only following my school but I'm also adding my own librarianship classes and favorite authors to my Twitter. I hadn't heard of Colby Sharp but his tweet on accelerated reader (AR) and how the program is crap was too funny and down right true. His was the only tweet that I was interested in https://twitter.com/colbysharp ,because many teachers I've talked to or listened to always say how AR doesn't benefit the kids at all. Sadly, our district is enforcing this program and monitoring the students carefully to see who has tested and who hasn't. Talk about Big Brother looking over your shoulder. Most of the Twitters I follow from Sam Houston have helped me find new books to try and Professor Perry always asks wants to know what we are reading, and I can't help put my book titles into the tweet response.
Like you, I had to set up a Twitter account last semester for a course. I did not know anything about it! I can see how it can be useful for a school teacher or librarian to use to communicate with parents and the community. Hopefully, I'll get more comfortable with using it with time!
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