We are making great progress on developing and expanding WEAC’s social media resources, and we’re getting more and more participation from our members every week. A couple events this week made me particularly excited about our progress.

First was the online participation we saw last Tuesday when we posted a note on our Facebook page about Governor Doyle signing the 5-year-kindergarten attendance bill. In the few hours following the posting, we saw a dynamic conversation taking place with members congratulating teacher Anne Knapp for her work in getting the bill passed and talking about the benefits that the new law will bring.

I know, on its own, that is not anything unusual. Thousands of conversations like this are taking place on Facebook every day. But to me this is an example of the success we are seeing in how social media can bring the WEAC community together in a rich online conversation. I’ve been the WEAC Editor for 20 years, and I don’t recall a time when we received more than a few letters to the editor (in the old days) or e-mails (more recently) about any single event publicized in the old News & Views or in WEAC In Print or on weac.org. But with a tool such as Facebook, we are seeing immediate reaction and interaction … the type of conversation that strengthens WEAC’s relationship with its members and members’ relationships with each other. Conversations and relationships … that’s what social media is all about.

The second event was on Saturday, when I had the pleasure of meeting with a group of UniServ presidents and then with a group of Student WEA members to talk about WEAC’s social media resources. Both groups were very interested in learning about these resources and in finding out how they can use them to connect with each other, with other WEAC members, and with the organization.

At the end of my discussion with Student WEA members, I asked what we could do to make our Web site and social media tools more valuable to them. One member suggested that we create a forum or discussion area where new and future educators could ask questions and seek advice from veteran teachers. What a fantastic idea! Using social media to bring together our new teachers and our veteran teachers in an online forum that would help both become better in their jobs … and develop relationships between them. You can bet I will be pursuing this outstanding suggestion.

I generated some other ideas from the weekend meetings, too. For example, I can promise our Multimedia and Social Networking page will soon include a page of simple directions for setting up a News Reader and populating it with RSS feeds, including several WEAC RSS feeds. What is an RSS feed, you ask? Well, the page we develop will tell you all about that. (For now, you can read my earlier blog entry on RSS feeds).

So, how about you? I bet you have some great ideas too. You can share them right here right now by commenting on this blog, or you can e-mail me directly at hurleyb@weac.org.