Social Media
Livestreaming to the World From Classrooms
By JENNIFER DELGADO/School Administrator, November 2017


IN UTAH, a superintendent holds a town hall meeting through Facebook, granting community members a chance to ask questions about the district. More than 1,000 miles away in Texas, a school system goes live on social media to discuss an upcoming bond referendum. And in New York, a high school posts real-time video of its graduation ceremony.

With a push of a button, schools across the country are broadcasting live on social media and giving their stakeholders another way to learn about important school news.

Limited Attention
In my school system in Chicago’s northwest suburbs, livestreaming enables us to connect with more students, parents, alumni and community partners. When we first started livestreaming on Facebook in 2016, we highlighted school events, classroom happenings and behind-the-scenes stories, all captured by my smartphone. The initial goal was to gauge what live videos resonated and how those broadcasts could help us tell our story.

Analytics showed our audience had an appetite for short, live broadcasts that spotlighted students and staff. Thus we began brainstorming visual and compelling stories that demonstrated how our educators are preparing students for what lies ahead.

We now focus on delivering broadcasts lasting no more than five or six minutes featuring some kind of action, such as culinary students whipping up a savory dish or manufacturing students creating parts for NASA’s International Space Station. I film on my smartphone while staff and students narrate.

Interest Spikes
Through these livestreams, we believe we are helping our followers (our district has nearly 4,000 on Facebook) better understand what public education in District 214 looks like. We want to build a connection so they are informed and can become our ambassadors, online and offline.

Since we’ve strategized — and started promoting in advance the dates and times of livestreams — we’ve seen a spike in engagement on our Facebook page. In fact, most of our views come from followers who shared the live video to their personal pages.

Facebook isn’t the only place where you can broadcast live. Twitter now has a livestreaming option embedded in the app, YouTube users can post live videos, and Instagram will let you entertain and inform with a content mix of real-time videos, photos and emojis.

Broadcasting events such as commencement and student theater productions in real time is always a crowd pleaser, but I think the true genius of livestreaming is its ability to show your followers something they normally don’t witness and give them the opportunity to interact. A behind-the-scenes look at construction on school buildings, a chance to see and ask questions of a school or district administrator on an important topic or highlighting hands-on skill development of students in real-world STEM lessons are great ways to give your community a glimpse into your district.

Cautionary Sides
There are risks to livestreaming. Something you don’t plan for could be caught on camera, such as a student misbehaving or a class activity gone awry. And if you want to engage on social media, you must be prepared for questions not related to your broadcast’s purpose.

That’s why, before you go live, it’s important your district knows how to quickly handle critical and negative social media comments. You should also prepare and practice with teachers and students in advance so they know what to do during a livestream.

The classroom should be a safe place for learning, so we don’t film the entire class period. We coordinate dates and times with our faculty and check student photo permission waivers to make sure everyone in the class is OK to be on camera.

Livestreaming may seem like a scary frontier, but it really is another way to keep your community informed. Once you’ve practiced and know the story you want to tell, you can connect with your stakeholders in a different way and show them more of what makes your district distinctive.

JENNIFER DELGADO is the communications supervisor for High School District 214 in Arlington Heights, Ill. E-mail: jennifer.delgado@d214.org Twitter: @jendelgado1