In the aftermath of the May 22 deadly tornado that devastated a large section of Joplin, Mo., school officials faced a communications crisis as they tried to assess the damage inflicted on the district and how they should move forward. Critical information had to be collected and disseminated—which schools had been damaged or destroyed, when or if classes were likely to resume, where people who needed assistance could find it—but the normal channels were disrupted.

Cell phone service in the area had been lost; and many families of students, teachers and staff members had been left homeless. The most effective place for communicating with the Joplin community, as well as those beyond the city concerned about the catastrophe, was the district’s Facebook page.

"Facebook was how we communicated with people," says Joplin school superintendent C.J. Huff. "It was the primary tool for getting information."

Facebook and other social media sites such as Twitter have become a primary information vehicle not just in Joplin, and not just in a crisis. Facebook says it has more than 800 million active users worldwide; Twitter says a billion messages—"tweets"—are sent on its site each week.

With such a prominent place in today’s society—especially in the lives of students—social media sites are a tool that schools and universities can’t ignore as they strive to provide a better learning environment for students and to manage schools more effectively.

"Facebook is where the kids are," says Huff. "That’s where we need to be."

Spreading the word

Joplin had a Facebook page before the tornado struck. It typically included routine messages about coming events or announcements about student and staff achievements. But after May 22, the page became a vital link that helped the community begin its recovery.

"We used Facebook to help locate people who hadn’t been accounted for," says Huff. "It helped us determine the status of all of our faculty, staff and students. People were constantly monitoring it for new information."

In the days and weeks following the tornado, the Joplin Schools Facebook page informed the community that the remainder of the school year was cancelled; it reported which campuses sustained damage and how severe the damage was; it encouraged families of students and employees to call into the district so that all those affected by the tornado could be found and accounted for; it confirmed the deaths of seven Joplin students and one educator; it directed the displaced to people and agencies offering assistance; it told community members how they could apply for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency; it announced the preliminary reopening and rebuilding plans for schools; and it spread the good news when the school system or the city received a donation—whether it was $50,000 from a large corporation or a few hundred dollars from kids around the country holding bake sales, lemonade stands or car washes.

"Just the other day, a request came in on Facebook for a student needing clothes, and we heard from someone in Pennsylvania who wanted to help and overnighted a package to us," says Huff.

Now that school is back in session, and the crisis has begun to ease, Huff says the district will continue to use Facebook to enhance day-to-day student learning.

"Teachers are using Facebook to post class assignments and to communicate with students and their parents," he says. "A lot of students have dropped their email accounts and now use just Facebook."

The district still keeps its web page up to date with the latest information, but Huff says it’s more important to get the information on Facebook.

"We’ll post things on Facebook first," he says. "It reaches more people than our web site."

Appropriate use

The rise of popularity of Facebook and Twitter has come very quickly—in many cases too fast for some education institutions to recognize its potential benefits or acknowledge possible downsides. Few schools anticipated the rise of Facebook, so few had policies to guide teachers and students about using it and other social media in a school setting.

Like any tool that schools and universities have available to improve the learning environment, as well as facilities and operations, social media networks can be beneficial if used wisely or problematic if used improperly. Social media have expanded the reach of communication and education, but they also have blurred the lines between public and private, and work and play.

In Georgia, a teacher was forced to resign when school officials were made aware of a photo of her drinking an alcoholic beverage while on vacation. In Manatee County, Fla., a high school teacher lost his job temporarily after allowing students to become Facebook friends and posting comments on a personal Facebook page that district officials considered inappropriate. The teacher was reinstated after a judge ruled that the district had established no policy regulating use of Facebook.

Earlier this summer, Missouri lawmakers, in an attempt to prevent private relationships between students and teachers from becoming incidents of sexual abuse, enacted legislation that in some interpretations, made it illegal for teachers to become Face-book friends with students. Many teachers and others objected to the law, saying it infringed on free-speech rights and prevented teachers from using what was a legitimate and effective way of communicating with students. A court injunction blocked the law from taking effect, and the legislature subsequently approved changes to the law that called upon individual districts to adopt their own policies regarding social media.

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© 2012 Penton Media, Inc.