Yesterday I setup a twitter group for parents – twitter.com/schooltalk. Two people in my network bravely stepped forward. A veteran twitter and teacher Matt Montagne and a brave parent Cindy Zautcke. It is very hard to encourage parents to use Web 2.0 tools for themselves and I think it is the result of all the bad publicity about social networking tools. I happened upon this blog post . It is a post about another article but that is how this communication works. Anyway it was talking about setting limits of our children using the computer. What caught my attention was this excerpt.
Anne’s son Kevin was in the hospital (two states from home) receiving a bone-marrow transplant.
“[Social networking] was a huge lifesaver for us,” says Anne, his mom. “If he was ever feeling down or bored, it would keep him occupied for hours.” By the time he came home on Valentine’s Day, she estimates that most of the nearly 200 kids at his private school—from preschool up through eighth grade—had signed up with the site just to keep in touch with her son.
My question is it too late to educate and engage parents in using social networking tools?
(Ah – yes – it could be my effervescent personality.) Please send your parents to twitter.com/schooltalk. Show them the potential for communicating and setting up their own network.
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Great description of how these tools can be HELPFUL. Many hospitals have also signed up for something called “Caring Bridge” that provides a webpage for a patient undergoing treatment for anything, really.