Happy School Library Media Month! Using Twitter Storms can be a strong advocacy tool for the importance of school librarians and the many hats worn each day.
Recently, the librarians in my school district started a Twitter Storm created by our district coordinator, Cristy Bolton. Bolton created a theme for each week and created specific hashtags for us. Throughout the day and week, all district librarians tweeted based on a theme and included the hashtags.
From this storm of tweets, district administrators, parents, and community members started taking note of our Twitter activity. Many retweeted, liked, and complimented our tweets. Several district office personnel who have not worked with us commented about how they learned more about our roles.
In turn, many librarians who were not comfortable with Twitter appreciated the theme for each week. It catapulted their Twitter activity through the rest of the year as well.
Week 1 Example
Twitter Storm Topic: LITERACY
Tweet all week showcasing our REAL program, literacy, reading appreciation, and anything reading related
Hashtags: #BVthisisREAL, #BVthisisLITERACY, #BVthisisREADING, #BVthisisTAG
The following week themes included collaboration and tech integration.
The final week focused on the a day-in-the-life of a certain building library. Each library was given one day to highlight their library via Twitter.
For more information about the Twitter Storm, contact Cristy Bolton.
Author: Becca Munson
Becca Munson, Librarian, is a National Board Certified Teacher with over 23 years of experience in education. She is currently a school librarian at Blue Valley West High School in Overland Park, KS. Becca continues to find ways to positively impact student learning with literacy initiatives, technology integration, and building rapport with students and staff. Follow her on Twitter to view the library in action @bvwlibrary and @beccamunson .
Categories: Advocacy/Leadership, Blog Topics, Technology
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