Example of how Bebo can be used to communicate

Here is an example I managed to track down revealing how schools can use Bebo to postively enhance communication across their community and amongst their pupils.

This positive example of social networking passed across my desk recently......

Social networking solution to rapid school communication problem---

You've probably experienced the difficulties of communicating a simplemessage using Chinese whipsers. Following a fire alarm raised when gas was smelt within school we had 800 students on a field, on a cold Thursday afternoon in November. They were instructed to go home as the school buses had started to arrive, but much to their annoyance many students had to leave their mobile phones and wallets in school until engineers arrived to check the building.

The school office was also off limits until the risk could be assessedand staff returned home not knowing what would happen the next day. Oncea decision had been made that school would remain closed on the Friday,staff started to receive information through the telephone tree withdepartment heads contacting their staff. The message that school wouldbe closed was also broadcast on the local BBC radio station, Suffolkradio. Not the students first choice of listening matter. These established methods were not effective in reaching our students.My experience was:After arriving home at 4:15 I started to receive messages on my Bebo home page from students asking whether or not school would be open thenext day.

As I hadn't yet been contacted by telephone I was only able to assure students that I would post a message to my Bebo whiteboard when Ihad information. I was contacted by about 6 students through Bebo, usingboth private messaging and the public comments feature. About fifteen students also contacted me using instant messaging and Email.

One of these students whose father is a teacher at our school, was able to tellme that school would in fact in be closed. After checking this via anEmail to this teacher, who was far ahead of me on the telephone tree, Iwas then able to post on my Bebo whiteboard that school was in factclosed. Posting the information on a web page in itself was not the mostpowerful use of the Internet.

It was the fact that so many students were connected to each other through Bebo and instant messaging that the newswas able to travel so quickly. Many students found out that school wasc losed through Bebo and instant messaging before visiting the school website to check the information or receiving an Email. Once the news was published on the school website was automatically available as an RSS feed and Emailed to pupils and parents. Asignificant number of these emails bounced back however from unavailable email accounts. Either from these Email accounts no longer being used orour messages being identified as spam because such a large number weresent out.

Bebo and the power of community won. The message was quickly relayed from hand to hand with students then visiting the school website tocheck the validity of the message.I received my message from the telephone tree three hours after I'd heard it through Bebo.

A wonderful example of the digital divide was that students without access to the Internet (or who hadn't been contacted by friends and didn't listen to radio Suffolk) were the ones who arrived at school to find it closed the next day! And when the engineers arrived, they couldn't find any damage to our gas supply - it was most likely a combination of smelly chemicals pouredaway by the science department :)

Ruth Hammond
Safeguarding Project Manager
Standards and Frameworks Team Institutional Development Directorate British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta)Millburn Hill RoadScience ParkCoventryCV4 7JJ

I really appreciate this letter wrote by Ruth Hammond, as it reveals how a useful Social Networker tools, like Bebo; can be. I believe that our future lies in the hands of digital communication, and it is so important that we provide children with opportunities to experience communicating through networkers like Bebo.

This letter is a prime example of how Bebo is not merely a tool youths use to chat on, it can also be a powerful bearer of news and communication. This is just the beginning through, I believe that Bebo has the power to promote educational discussion and enable children to seek for ideas and answers in their classroom peers, and others across the globe their age.